Alveolar flap
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Template:Infobox IPA The alveolar tap/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 4.
The difference between a tap and a flap is that in a tap the tongue flips up to strike its point of contact, like a very light plosive, whereas with a flap the tongue is thrown out and down, striking the point of contact in passing. For linguists that make a distinction between the two, the tap is transcribed as a "fish-hook ar", , while the flap is transcribed as a small capital dee, (which however is not recognized by the IPA). However, no language contrasts a tap and a flap at the same point of articulation, so the terms are often used loosely.
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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.
In English
The alveolar flap is not a phoneme of English, but it occurs as an allophone of [t] and [d] (the voiceless alveolar plosive and voiced alveolar plosive) in North American English and sometimes in Australian English when they occur in unstressed syllables, like in the words rider () and better ().
Other languages
Spanish
The alveolar tap is the single orthographic 'r' in the middle of Spanish words, as in pero ("but"), but not in perro ("dog"), where it is an alveolar trill. (Intial orthographic r, as in rana ("frog"), however, and (for many people) final r as in ir ("to go"), are also trills.)
See also