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Tap and flap consonants
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Tap and flap consonants
In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (such as the tongue) is thrown against another.
The main difference between a tap or flap and a stop is that in a tap/flap there is no buildup of air pressure behind the place of articulation and consequently no release burst. Otherwise a tap/flap is similar to a brief stop.
Taps and flaps also contrast with trills, where the airstream causes the articulator to vibrate. Trills may be realized as a single contact, like a tap or flap, but are variable, whereas a tap/flap is limited to a single contact. When a trill is brief and made with a single contact it is sometimes erroneously described as an (allophonic) tap/flap, but a true tap or flap is an active articulation whereas a trill is a passive articulation. That is, for a tap or flap the tongue makes an active gesture to contact the target place of articulation, whereas with a trill the contact is due to the vibration caused by the airstream rather than any active movement.
Many linguists use the terms tap and flap interchangeably. Peter Ladefoged proposed for a while that it might be useful to distinguish between them. He said that a tap strikes its point of contact directly (as a very brief stop) but a flap strikes the point of contact tangentially (since the flap passes by along its trajectory). However, his usage was inconsistent and contradicted itself in his other books, even between different editions of the same text.
Siniša Spajić, Peter Ladefoged, and P. Bhaskararao, in their paper The Trills of Toda, proposed a similar version of the distinction, with an extra description for flaps: "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." Later in the paper, however, the term flap is used in all cases. Subsequent work on the labiodental flap has clarified the issue: flaps involve retraction of the active articulator, and a forward-striking movement.
For linguists who do not make the tap vs. flap distinction, alveolars are typically called taps, and other articulations are called flaps.
A few languages have been reported to contrast a tap and a flap (as in the proposed definition cited above) at the same place of articulation. This is the case for Norwegian, in which the alveolar apical tap /ɾ/ and the post-alveolar/retroflex apical flap /ɽ/ have the same place of articulation for some speakers, and Kamviri, which also has both an apical alveolar tap ('upward' r) and an apical alveolar flap ('forward' ṛ).
The tap and flap consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
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Tap and flap consonants
In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (such as the tongue) is thrown against another.
The main difference between a tap or flap and a stop is that in a tap/flap there is no buildup of air pressure behind the place of articulation and consequently no release burst. Otherwise a tap/flap is similar to a brief stop.
Taps and flaps also contrast with trills, where the airstream causes the articulator to vibrate. Trills may be realized as a single contact, like a tap or flap, but are variable, whereas a tap/flap is limited to a single contact. When a trill is brief and made with a single contact it is sometimes erroneously described as an (allophonic) tap/flap, but a true tap or flap is an active articulation whereas a trill is a passive articulation. That is, for a tap or flap the tongue makes an active gesture to contact the target place of articulation, whereas with a trill the contact is due to the vibration caused by the airstream rather than any active movement.
Many linguists use the terms tap and flap interchangeably. Peter Ladefoged proposed for a while that it might be useful to distinguish between them. He said that a tap strikes its point of contact directly (as a very brief stop) but a flap strikes the point of contact tangentially (since the flap passes by along its trajectory). However, his usage was inconsistent and contradicted itself in his other books, even between different editions of the same text.
Siniša Spajić, Peter Ladefoged, and P. Bhaskararao, in their paper The Trills of Toda, proposed a similar version of the distinction, with an extra description for flaps: "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." Later in the paper, however, the term flap is used in all cases. Subsequent work on the labiodental flap has clarified the issue: flaps involve retraction of the active articulator, and a forward-striking movement.
For linguists who do not make the tap vs. flap distinction, alveolars are typically called taps, and other articulations are called flaps.
A few languages have been reported to contrast a tap and a flap (as in the proposed definition cited above) at the same place of articulation. This is the case for Norwegian, in which the alveolar apical tap /ɾ/ and the post-alveolar/retroflex apical flap /ɽ/ have the same place of articulation for some speakers, and Kamviri, which also has both an apical alveolar tap ('upward' r) and an apical alveolar flap ('forward' ṛ).
The tap and flap consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are: