Alveolar flap

Voiced alveolar tap
ɾ
IPA number	124
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɾ
Unicode (hex)	U+027E
X-SAMPA	4
Kirshenbaum	*
Braille
Image
Sound
source · help

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⟩.

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.^[1] The last proposed distinction was that a tap strikes its point of contact directly, as a very brief stop, 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.^{[citation needed]}

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 not phonemic, it is often an allophone of either an alveolar stop ([t] or [d]) or a rhotic consonant like the alveolar trill or alveolar approximant.

When the alveolar tap is the only rhotic consonant in the language, it may for simplicity be transcribed /r/, i.e. the symbol technically representing the trill.

Voiced alveolar flap

Features

Features of the alveolar tap:

• Its manner of articulation is tap, 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 alveolar, post-alveolar or dental, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, behind the alveolar ridge or behind upper front teeth, termed respectively apical and laminal.

• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.

• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.

• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.

• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Albanian		emër	[ɛməɾ]	'name'	Contrasts with /r/ in all positions.
Arabic	Egyptian[2]	رجل	[ɾeɡl]	'foot'	Contrasts with emphatic form. See Arabic phonology
Armenian	Eastern[3]	րոպե	[ɾopɛ] (help·info)	'minute'	Contrasts with /r/ in all positions.
Asturian		yera	[ˈʝe̞ɾa]	'I/it was'	Contrasts with /r/.
Austro-Bavarian		Rose	[ɾoːzə]	'rose'
Basque		lore	[lo̞ɾe̞]	'flower'	Contrasts with /r/.
Catalan[4]		mira	[ˈmiɾə]	'look'	Contrasts with /r/. See Catalan phonology
Chechen		рагI / raġ	[ɾɑɣ]	'mountain range'
Dutch	Many dialects	Peru	[peˈɾu] (help·info)	'Peru'	In free variation with [r] and [ʀ]. Pronunciation of /r/ varies regionally. See Dutch phonology
English	RP[5]	better	[ˈbe̞ɾə]	'better'	Intervocalic allophone of /t/ for some speakers. See English phonology and flapping
	Cockney[6]				Intervocalic allophone of /t/. In free variation with [ʔ ~ tʰ ~ tˢ]. See flapping
	Australian[7]		[ˈbeɾə]		Intervocalic allophone of /t/, and also /d/ among few Australians. Used more often in Australia than in New Zealand. See Australian English phonology and flapping
	New Zealand[8]		[ˈbeɾɘ]
	Dublin		[ˈbɛɾɚ] (help·info)		Intervocalic allophone of /t/ and /d/, present in many dialects. In Local Dublin it can be [ɹ] instead, unlike New and Mainstream. See English phonology and flapping
	North America[9]
	Ulster
	West Country
	Irish	three	[θɾiː]	'three'	Conservative accents. Corresponds to [ɹ ~ ɻ ~ ʁ] in other accents.
	Scottish[10]				Most speakers. Others use [ɹ ~ r].
	Older RP[11]				Allophone of /ɹ/.
	Scouse[10]
	South African[10]				Broad speakers. Can be [ɹ ~ r] instead.
Galician		cordeiro	[koɾˈðejɾo]	'lamb'	Contrasts with /r/ in all positions.
Gokana[12]		bele	[bēɾ̠ē]	'we'	Postalveolar. Allophone of /l/, medially between vowels within the morpheme,[12] and finally in the morpheme before a following vowel in the same word.[12] It can be a postalveolar trill or simply [l] instead.[12]
Greek[13]		μηρός mirós	[miˈɾ̠o̞s]	'thigh'	Somewhat retracted. Most common realization of /r/. See Modern Greek phonology
Hebrew	Mizrahi	רבע	[ˈɾevaʕ]	'quarter'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
	Sephardic
Ilokano		tumakder	[tʊmakˈdeɾ]	'to stand up'
Irish		carr tirim	[kaɾˠ] [tʲɪɾʲɪmʲ]	'car' 'dry' (adj.)	Exists in velarised ("broad") and palatalised ("slender") forms. See Irish phonology
Japanese		心 kokoro	[ko̥koɾo] (help·info)	'heart'	May instead be an alveolar lateral flap. See Japanese phonology
Korean		바람 baram	[paɾam]	'wind'	See Korean phonology
Māori		reo	[ˈɾeo]	'language'
Norwegian		Norge	[ˈnɔɾɡə]	'Norway'	See Norwegian phonology
Persian		كشور	[keʃvæɾ]	'country'	See Persian phonology
Portuguese[14]		prato	[ˈpɾatu]	'dish'	Dental to retroflex allophones, varying by dialect. Contrasts with /ʁ/, with its guttural allophones and, in all positions, with its archaic form [r]. See Portuguese phonology
Sicilian		corna	[ˈkɔɾna]	'horns'
Spanish[15]		caro	[ˈkaɾo̞]	'expensive'	Contrasts with /r/. See Spanish phonology
Tagalog		bihira	[bɪˈhiɾɐ]	'rare'	See Tagalog phonology
Turkish		Türkiye	[ˈt̪yɾcijɛ]	'Turkey'	See Turkish phonology
Uzbek[16]		ёмғир yomg‘ir	[ʝɒ̜mˈʁ̟ɨɾ̪]	'rain'	Denti-alveolar.[16]
Zapotec	Tilquiapan[17]	ran	[ɾaŋ]	'to see'

Voiceless alveolar flap

The voiceless alveolar tap or flap is rare as a phoneme. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represent this sound are ⟨ɾ̥⟩ and ⟨ɾ̊⟩, combinations of the letter for the voiced alveolar tap/flap and a diacritic indicating voicelessness, either above or below the letter. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is 4_0.

Features

Features of the voiceless alveolar tap:

• Its manner of articulation is tap, 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 alveolar, post-alveolar or dental, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, behind the alveolar ridge or behind upper front teeth, termed respectively apical and laminal.

• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.

• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.

• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.

• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Voiced alveolar nasal flap

Features

Features of the voiced alveolar nasal flap:

• Its manner of articulation is 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 alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.

• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.

• It is a nasal consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose, either exclusively (nasal stops) or in addition to through the mouth.

• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.

• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

See also

• Intervocalic alveolar flapping
• Index of phonetics articles

References

Bibliography

v t e   International Phonetic Alphabet   IPA topics IPA International Phonetic Association History of the IPA Extensions to the IPA Kiel convention (1989) Journal of the IPA (JIPA) Naming conventions Phonetics Diacritics Segments Tone letter Place of articulation Manner of articulation Special topics Case variants of IPA letters Handwritten IPA Obsolete and nonstandard symbols IPA chart for English dialects Encodings SAMPA X-SAMPA Kirshenbaum TIPA Phonetic symbols in Unicode WorldBet IPA Braille   Consonants v t e IPA pulmonic consonantschart image • audio Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Radical Glottal ↓ Manner Bila­bial Labio-​dental Den​tal Alve​olar Post­alveolar Retro​flex Alveolo-​palatal Pal​a​tal Ve​lar Uvu​lar Pha​ryn​geal Epi​glot​tal Glot​tal Nasal m̥ m ɱ n̪ n̥ n n̠ ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̟ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ Stop p b p̪ b̪ t̪ d̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Sibilant fricative s̪ z̪ s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ ð θ̱ ð̠ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Approximant ʋ ɹ ɻ j̊ j ɰ Flap or tap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̯ Trill ʙ r̥ r ɽ͡r ʀ ᴙ * Lateral fricative ɬ ɮ ꞎ * ʎ̝̊ ʟ̝̊ ʟ̝ Lateral approximant l̥ l ɭ ʎ̟ ʎ ʟ Lateral flap ɺ ɺ̢ * ʎ̯ ʟ̆ Non-pulmonic consonants Clicks ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ ʘ̃ ʘ̃ˀ ʘ͡q ʘ͡qʼ ‼ Implosives ɓ̥ ɓ ɗ̥ ɗ ᶑ ʄ̊ ʄ ɠ ʛ Ejectives pʼ t̪ʼ tʼ ʈʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ɬʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ tsʼ tɬʼ cʎ̝̥ʼ tʃʼ ʈʂʼ kxʼ kʟ̝̊ʼ qχʼ Affricates p̪f b̪v ts dz t̪s̪ d̪z̪ tθ dð tʃ dʒ tɕ dʑ ʈʂ ɖʐ tɬ dɮ cç ɟʝ cʎ̥˔ kx ɡɣ kʟ̝̊ ɡʟ̝ qχ ɢʁ Co-articulated consonants Continuants ʍ w ɥ ɧ Occlusives k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m — These tables contain phonetic symbols, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] — Where symbols appear in pairs, left–right represent the voiceless–voiced consonants. — Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged to be impossible. — Symbols marked with an asterisk (*) are not defined in the IPA. Chart image Pulmonics Non-pulmonics Affricates Co-articulated   Vowels Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back Close •iy •ɨʉ •ɯu •ɪʏ •ɪ̈ʊ̈ •ɯ̽ʊ •eø •ɘɵ •ɤo •e̞ø̞ ə •ɤ̞o̞ •ɛœ •ɜɞ •ʌɔ æ ɐ •aɶ ä •ɑɒ Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open IPA help • chart •  chart with audio • view