Revision of the IPA: linguo-labials as a test case

Abstract

The president of the International Phonetic Association has called for a discussion of issues concerning the revision of the International Phonetic Alphabet (Ladefoged (1987 a; b)). This discussion needs to be concerned with the actual use to which the IPA is put by its ‘consumers’ as well as with the way that the design of the Alphabet reflects and interacts with the notion of a phonetic theory. However, for many phoneticians perhaps the first issue to come to mind will be the need for possible additions to the Alphabet to represent sounds that at present have no recognized transcription. The present paper discusses suggestions for the transcription of one class of such sounds, namely, linguo-labials. A number of proposals are evaluated in the light of their advantages and drawbacks and the implications they have for principles of transcription and phonetic theory.