A 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 .
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 could be written in non-standard IPA with the tap as and the flap as , the retroflex letter being used for the one that starts with the tongue tip curled back behind the alveolar ridge, though it could be written less ambiguously with the Americanist letter (or IPA ) for the tap and standard IPA for the flap. The distinction is noticeable in the speech of some American English speakers in distinguishing the words "potty" (tap) and "party" (flap).
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.
As a phoneme, the sound is analyzed as a rhotic consonant. In languages for which the segment is present but not phonemic, it is often an allophone of either an alveolar stop (, , or both) or a rhotic consonant.
If an alveolar flap is the only rhotic consonant in the language, it may be transcribed with in broad transcription, despite that symbol technically representing a trill.
A voiced alveolar tapped fricative is reported from some languages, which is a very brief voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative.
Features
upright=0.6|class=skin-invert-image|thumb|[[Sagittal section of an alveolar flap (voicing not shown).]]
Features of a 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
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2" | Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| Albanian || Standard || || || 'Albania' || Contrasts with in all positions.
|-
| rowspan="4" | Arabic || Egyptian || || || 'leg' || See Egyptian Arabic phonology.
|-
| Lebanese
|
|
|'wages'
|
|-
| Moroccan
| / rma
|
|'he threw'
|
|-
| South Iraqi
|
|
| 'I want'
|
|-
| colspan="2" | Aragonese || || || 'Aragonese' || Contrasts with .
|-
| Armenian || Eastern || || || 'minute' || Contrasts with in all positions.
|-
| colspan=2 | Assyrian
| ܪܫܐ / rìsha
|
| 'head'
|
|-
| colspan="2" | Asturian || || || 'hour' || Contrasts with .
|-
| colspan="2" | Azerbaijani || / || || 'black' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Basque || || || 'look' || Contrasts with . See Basque phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" rowspan="2" | Bengali|| || || 'dear' || Main realisation of phoneme. Also pronounced as or very rarely as , especially in word-initial positions. See Bengali phonology.
|-
|
|
| 'car'
| Apical postalveolar flaps; contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms. See Bengali phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" | Catalan || || || 'trick' || Contrasts with . See Catalan phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" | Danish || || || 'Nordic' || Possible realization of intervocalic between phonetic vowels. || rowspan="7" | better || || rowspan="7" | 'better' || Intervocalic allophone of . In free variation with [ ~ ~ ]. See Flapping.
|-
| Australian || rowspan="2" | || rowspan="2" | Intervocalic allophone of and . See Australian English phonology, New Zealand English phonology and Flapping.
|-
| New Zealand
|-
| Dublin|| rowspan="4" | || rowspan="4" | 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 || rowspan="5" | three || rowspan="5" | || rowspan="5" | 'three' || Conservative accents. Corresponds to [ ~ ~ ] in other accents.
|-
| Scottish || Most speakers. Others use [ ~ ].
|-
| Older Received Pronunciation || rowspan="2" | Allophone of .
|-
| Scouse || / || || 'thigh' || Somewhat retracted. Most common realization of . See Modern Greek phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" | Gokana
|
|
| 'we'
| Apical postalveolar. Allophone of , medially between vowels within the morpheme, and finally in the morpheme before a following vowel in the same word. It can be a postalveolar trill or simply instead. See Hindustani phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" | Hungarian||kar|| || 'arm' || Allophone of . See Hungarian phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" | Irish || || || 'man' || See Irish phonology.
|-
| rowspan="2" |Italian
|Standard
|
|
|'era'
|Intervocalic realization of .
|-
| Sicilian|| drago || || 'dragon' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Kinyarwanda || u Rwanda || || 'Rwanda' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Japanese || / || || 'heart' || Varies with . See Japanese phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" | Kazakh || / || || 'give' || In free variation with trilled . See Kazakh phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" | Korean || 여름 / || || 'summer' || Allophone of between vowels or between a vowel and an . See Korean phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" | Kyrgyz || / || || 'forty' || See Kyrgyz phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" |Malay
|راتوس / ratus
|
|'hundred'
|Common realization of . May be a trilled or postalveolar approximant []. See Malay phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" |Malayalam
|വര/vara
|
|'line' or 'drawing'
|See Malayalam phonology
|-
| colspan="2" |Māori || || || 'house' || Sometimes trilled.
|-
| colspan="2" |Marathi |||||| 'wind' ||
|-
| colspan="2" rowspan="2" | Nepali ||
||| 'star' || Intervocalic allophone of . See Nepali phonology.
|-
|
|
| 'rent'
| Apical postalveolar flaps; postvocalic allophone of . See Nepali phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" | Norwegian|| || || 'only' || May be realised as a trill , approximant or uvular depending on dialect. See Norwegian phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" rowspan="2" |Odia || / ||||'night'||
|-
|
|
| 'car'
| Apical postalveolar flaps; postvocalic allophone of .
|-
| colspan="2" |Polish
|
|
|'which'
|Common realization of . See Polish phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" | Portuguese || || || 'dish' || Dental to retroflex allophones, varying by dialect. Contrasts only intervocalically with , with its guttural allophones. See Portuguese phonology.
|-
| rowspan="2" |Punjabi
|Gurmukhi
|
| rowspan="2" |
| rowspan="2" |'false promise'
| rowspan="2" |See Punjabi phonology.
|-
|Shahmukhi
|
|-
| colspan="2" | 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.
|-
| colspan="2" | Shipibo
|
|
| 'to break'
| Apical postalveolar; possible realization of . || || || 'expensive' || Contrasts with . See Spanish phonology.
|-
| colspan="2 | Tagalog || || || 'joke' || See Tagalog phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" |Tamil
| / maram
|
|'tree'
|See Tamil phonology.
|-
|Thai
|Some speakers
|พระ / phrá
|
|'monk'
|
|-
| colspan="2" | Turkish || || || 'interval' || Intervocalically; may not make full contact elsewhere. || / / || || 'rain' || Denti-alveolar. || || || 'to tell' || Voiced dental flap in intervocalic position.
|-
| Wu Chinese || Xuanzhou Wu || || || 'Tongling' || Found in various Xuanzhou localities, with that of Tongling provided. Tones not notated due to complexity of tone sandhi. Equivalent to in other lects.
|}
Alveolar nasal tap and flap
Features
Features of an 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
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2" | Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| rowspan="2" | English || Estuary || rowspan="2" | twenty || rowspan="2" | || rowspan="2" | 'twenty' || rowspan="2" | 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
|-
| colspan= "2" | Guarani || || || 'good' || Nasalized allophone of as a result of nasal harmony. See Guarani language § Nasal harmony
|}
See also
- Flapping
- Index of phonetics articles