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Dental, alveolar and postalveolar flaps

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IPA number
  
124

Unicode (hex)
  
U+027E

Kirshenbaum
  
*

Entity (decimal)
  
ɾ

X-SAMPA
  
4

Dental, alveolar and postalveolar flaps

The alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar flaps is [ɾ].

Contents

The terms tap and flap may be used interchangeably. Peter Ladefoged proposed for a while that it may be useful to distinguish between them; however, his usage has been inconsistent, contradicting itself even between different editions of the same text. The last proposed distinction was that a tap strikes its point of contact directly, as a very brief stop, whereas a flap strikes the point of contact tangentially: "Flaps are most typically made by retracting the tongue tip behind the alveolar ridge and moving it forward so that it strikes the ridge in passing." However, later on, he no longer felt this was a useful distinction to make, and preferred to use the word flap in all cases.

For linguists who do make the distinction, the coronal tap is transcribed as a fish-hook "r", [ɾ], while the flap is transcribed as a small capital "d", [ᴅ], which is not recognized by the IPA. Otherwise, alveolars and dentals are typically called taps, and other articulations flaps. No language contrasts a tap and a flap at the same place of articulation.

This sound is often analyzed (and therefore transcribed) by native English speakers as an 'R-sound' in many foreign languages. In languages where this segment is present but not phonemic, it is often an allophone of either an alveolar stop ([t], [d] or both) or a rhotic consonant like the alveolar trill or alveolar approximant.

When the alveolar tap is the only rhotic consonant in the language, it may for simplicity be transcribed /r/, i.e. the symbol technically representing the trill.

Features

Features of the alveolar tap:

  • Its manner of articulation is flap, which means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that the tongue makes very brief contact.
  • Its place of articulation is dental, alveolar or post-alveolar, which means it is articulated behind upper front teeth, at the alveolar ridge or behind the alveolar ridge. It is most often apical, which means that it is pronounced with the tip of the tongue.
  • Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
  • It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
  • It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
  • The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

    • Voiced alveolar tapped fricative

    A tapped fricative is in effect a very brief fricative, with the tongue making the gesture for a tapped stop but not making full contact. This can be indicated in the IPA with the lowering diacritic to show full occlusion did not occur. Flapped fricatives are theoretically possible but are not attested.

    Features

    Features of the voiced alveolar tapped fricative:

  • Its manner of articulation is tapped fricative, which means the tongue makes a brief obstruction sufficient to create frication.
  • Its place of articulation is apical alveolar, which means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue at the alveolar ridge.
  • Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
  • It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
  • It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
  • The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

    • Occurrence

    Reported from Turkish in a single source. In Tacana per UPSID.

    Features

    Features of the alveolar nasal flap:

  • Its manner of articulation is flap, which means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that the tongue makes very brief contact.
  • Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
  • Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
  • It is a nasal consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose, either exclusively (nasal stops) or in addition to through the mouth.
  • It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
  • The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

    • References

    Dental, alveolar and postalveolar flaps Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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