Alveolar lateral flap
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Template:Infobox IPA The lateral alveolar flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is l\.
Features
Features of the alveolar lateral flap:
- Its manner of articulation is flap, which means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.
- 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 lateral consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the sides of the tongue, rather than the middle of the tongue.
- 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.
In other languages
In Japanese, the r is a lateral flap. This appears to be quite common in languages which do not distinguish from , especially when these are claimed to be in "free variation". The lateral flap is under-reported because European-language speaking linguists often fail to recognize it.
The Iwaidja language of Australia has both an alveolar and a retroflex lateral flap, and (perhaps) a palatal lateral flap as well.
See also