Alveolar tap

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, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is 4.

Definition

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 plosive, 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. For example, the 'Japanese R' in hara, akira, tora, etc. is actually an alveolar tap. In languages where this segment is present but is not a true phoneme, an alveolar tap is often an allophone of either an alveolar stop (/t/ or /d/) or an 'R-sound' i.e. an alveolar trill or alveolar approximant.

Features

Features of the alveolar flap/tap:

• Its manner of articulation is tap or flap, which means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator briefly strikes the other.
• Its place of articulation is alveolar which means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge.
• Its phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Albanian		emër	[ɛməɾ]	'name'
Arabic	Egyptian	رأس	[ɾaʔs]	'head'	Contrasts with emphatic form. See Arabic phonology
Basque		lorea		'the flower'
Catalan		innecessari	[innəsəˈsaɾi]	'unnecessary'	See Catalan phonology
Chechen		рагI/raġ	[ɾɑɣ]	'mountain range'
English	GA	better	[ˈbɛɾɚ]	'better'	Intervocalic allophone of /t/ and /d/. See English phonology and flapping
	Australian		[ˈbe̞ɾə]		See Australian English phonology
	New Zealand		[ˈbeɾə]
	Scouse	free	[fɾiː]	'free'	Rhotic consonant
	Scotland
Japanese		心/こころ/kokoro	[ko̥koɾo]	'heart'	May instead be a lateral flap See Japanese phonology
Korean		바람/baram	[paɾam]	'wind'	See Korean phonology
Norwegian		Norge		'Norway'	See Norwegian phonology
Portuguese		contra		'against'	See Portuguese phonology
Spanish		caro	[ˈkaɾo̞]	'expensive'	See Spanish phonology

References

Bibliography

See also

• List of phonetic topics