Bidental consonant

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Places of articulation

Bidental

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Bidental consonants, pronounced with both the lower and upper teeth, are normally found only in speech pathology. The Extensions to the IPA symbol is both a superscript and a subscript bridge, [ ̪͆].

Besides interdental consonants such as [n̪͆], which involve the tongue, there is at least one confirmed attestation of a true bidental consonant in normal language. The Black Sea sub-dialect of the Shapsug dialect of Adyghe has a bidental non-sibilant fricative where other dialects have [x], such as xə "six" and daxə "pretty". Therefore it might best be transcribed phonemically as /x̪͆/. However, there is no frication at the velum. The teeth themselves are the only constriction: "The lips [are] fully open, the teeth clenched and the tongue flat, the air passing between the teeth; the sound is intermediate between ʃ and f" (quoted in Ladefoged & Maddieson, The Sounds of the World's Languages, pp 144-145). This can be transcribed phonetically as [h̪͆], since [h] has no place of articulation of its own.