Re: Labiodental nasals

Roger wrote:

<<Does any IPA sources contain such information? If it _contrasts_ somewhere,
that must be known.  It certainly occurs as an allophone in lots of langs.--
I recall my Catalan grammar actually used the correct symbol when discussing
the written "-nf-" sequence; You get it in Span. conforte, énfasis, infierno
etc.>>

I can't give you any data, or even remember a language name, but I can tell 
you that I've seen data where [m]
contrasts with [F].   It's not hard to imagine.   Consider the following:

A language has...

tamp
taFf
tans
taNk

All /nasal+consonant/ sequences simplify to simply /nasal/, producing:

tam
taF
tan
taN

Of course, it would be unlikely for the [m] ~ [F] distinction to hold up: 
It's just too unstable.   Nevertheless, I
promise you, it has held up somewhere--I just can't remember where.   (I 
think it was a Sino-Tibetin langauge...)

-David
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