Voiced dental and alveolar taps and flaps

Template:Short description The voiced alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents a dental, alveolar, or postalveolar tap or flap is Template:Angbr IPA.

The terms tap and flap are often used interchangeably. Peter Ladefoged proposed the distinction that a tap strikes its point of contact directly, as a very brief stop, and 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." That distinction between the alveolar tap and flap can be written in the IPA with tap Template:Angbr IPA and flap Template:Angbr IPA, the 'retroflex' symbol being used for the one that starts with the tongue tip curled back behind the alveolar ridge. The distinction is noticeable in the speech of some American English speakers in distinguishing the words "potty" (tap ) and "party" (retroflex Template:IPAblink).

For linguists who do not make the distinction, 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.

The sound is often analyzed and thus interpreted by non-native English-speakers as an 'R-sound' in many foreign languages. In languages for which the segment is present but not phonemic, it is often an allophone of either an alveolar stop (Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink, or both) or a rhotic consonant (like the alveolar trill or the alveolar approximant).

If the alveolar flap is the only rhotic consonant in the language, it may be transcribed with Template:Angbr IPA although that symbol technically represents the trill.

The voiced alveolar tapped fricative reported from some languages is actually a very brief voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative.

Voiced alveolar tap and flap

Features

File:Alveolar flap.svg

Features of the voiced alveolar tap or flap:

• Its manner of articulation is tap or 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 or alveolar, which means it is articulated behind upper front teeth or at the alveolar ridge. It is most often apical, which means that it is pronounced with the tip of the tongue.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Arabic	Egyptian			'leg'	See Egyptian Arabic phonology
	Lebanese			'wages'
	Moroccan	رما / rma	[ɾma]	'he threw'
	South Iraqi			'I want'
Aragonese				'Aragonese'	Contrasts with Template:IPAslink.
Armenian	Eastern		{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "ɾopɛ.ogg" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'minute'	Contrasts with Template:IPAslink in all positions.
Assyrian		ܪܝܫܐ rìsha		'head'	Contrasts with ‘dark’ R.
Asturian				'hour'	Contrasts with Template:IPAslink.
Basque				'look'	Contrasts with Template:IPAslink. See Basque phonology
Bengali				'again'	Main realisation of /r/. Corresponds to [[[:Template:IPA link]] ~ Template:IPA link] in others and may occur word-medially and finally against [r]. See Bengali phonology
Catalan				'trick'	Contrasts with Template:IPAslink. See Catalan phonology
Danish				'Nordic'	Possible realization of intervocalic between phonetic vowels. See Danish phonology
Dutch				'reason'	Especially in the region of West Frisia. Realization of /r/ varies widely in Dutch. See Dutch phonology
English	Cockney	better		'better'	Intervocalic allophone of . In free variation with [ ~ ~ ]. See Flapping
	Australian				Intervocalic allophone of and . See Australian English phonology, New Zealand English phonology and Flapping
	New Zealand
	Dublin		{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "En-us-better.ogg" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler		Intervocalic allophone of and , present in many dialects. In Local Dublin it can be instead, unlike New and Mainstream. See English phonology and Flapping
	North America
	Ulster
	West Country
	Irish	three		'three'	Conservative accents. Corresponds to [[[:Template:IPA link]] ~ Template:IPA link ~ Template:IPA link] in other accents.
	Scottish				Most speakers. Others use [[[:Template:IPA link]] ~ Template:IPA link].
	Older Received Pronunciation				Allophone of
	Scouse
	South African				Broad speakers. Can be [[[:Template:IPA link]] ~ Template:IPA link] instead
Esperanto				'one who hopes'	Usually a flap Template:IPAblink, but can be a trilled Template:IPA link. See Esperanto phonology
Finnish				'rat'	Occurs in Häme (Tampere) dialect, contrasts with Template:IPA link in standard Finnish. See Finnish phonology
Greek		/ Template:Transliteration		'thigh'	Somewhat retracted. Most common realization of Template:IPAslink. See Modern Greek phonology
Hindustani		/		'My'	Allophone of /r/ in intervocalic position. See Hindi phonology
Hungarian		kar		'arm'	Allophone of /r/
Irish				'man'	See Irish phonology
Kinyarwanda		u Rwanda		'Rwanda'
Japanese		/	{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "ja-kokoro.ogg" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'heart'	Template:Sfnp Varies with Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp See Japanese phonology
Kazakh		/	{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "Kz-Ber.ogg" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'give'	See Kazakh phonology
Korean		여름 /		'summer'	Allophone of /l/ between vowels or between a vowel and an /h/
Malay		راتوس / ratus		'hundred'	Common realisation of /r/. May be trill [] or postalveolar approximant []. See Malay phonology
Māori				'house'	Sometimes trilled.
Marathi				'wind'
Nepali				'star'	Intervocalic allophone of /r/. See Nepali phonology
Norwegian			{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "Norwegian Voiced Dental sound.ogg" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'only'	May be realised as a trill , approximant or uvular depending on dialect. See Norwegian phonology
Odia		/Template:Transliteration		'night'
Polish				'which'	Can also sometimes be an approximant, a fricative, and rarely - a trill. See Polish phonology
Portuguese				'dish'	Dental to retroflex allophones, varying by dialect. Contrasts only intervocalically with Template:IPAslink, with its guttural allophones. See Portuguese phonology
Punjabi	Gurmukhi			'false promise'	See Punjabi phonology.
	Shahmukhi
Scottish Gaelic				'big'	Both the lenited and non-initial broad form of r. Often transcribed simply as . The initial unlenited broad form is a trill , while the slender form is ( in some dialects). See Scottish Gaelic phonology.
Spanish			{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "Caro Voiced alveolar flap Latino Spanish.wav" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'expensive'	Contrasts with Template:IPAslink. See Spanish phonology
Tagalog				'joke'	See Tagalog phonology
Tamil				'tree'	See Tamil phonology
Thai	Some speakers	พระ / phra		'monk'
Turkish				'interval'	Intervocalically; may not make full contact elsewhere. See Turkish phonology
Uzbek		//		'rain'	Denti-alveolar.
West Coast Bajau				'to tell'	Voiced dental flap in intervocalic position.
Wu Chinese	Tongling			'Tongling'	Tones not notated due to complexity of tone sandhi. Equivalent to in other lects. Also seen in other Xuanzhou Wu varieties
Italian	Sicilian	Drago/Dragu		Dragon

Alveolar nasal tap and flap

Features

Features of the alveolar nasal tap or flap:

• Its manner of articulation is tap or flap, which means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that the tongue makes very brief contact.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
English	Estuary	twenty	{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "En-us-twenty.ogg" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'twenty'	Allophone of unstressed intervocalic for some speakers, especially in rapid or casual speech. See English phonology, North American English regional phonology and flapping
	North American
Guarani				'good'	Nasalized allophone of as a result of nasal harmony. See Guarani language § Nasal harmony

See also

• Flapping
• Index of phonetics articles

References

• Template:SOWL
• Template:Dead link

External links

• Template:Phoible