Intervocalic Alveolar Flapping
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Flapping or tapping, also known as alveolar flapping, intervocalic flapping, or ''t''-voicing, is a
phonological Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
process found in many varieties of
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
, especially
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,
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and
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, whereby the
voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
alveolar Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit. Uses in anatomy and zoology * Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs ** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte ** Alveolar duct ** Alveolar macrophage * ...
stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
is pronounced as a
voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer ...
alveolar flap The voiced alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents a dental, alveolar, or postalveolar tap or flap is . The terms ''tap'' and ''flap' ...
, a sound produced by briefly tapping the
alveolar ridge The alveolar process () or alveolar bone is the thickened ridge of bone that contains the tooth sockets on the jaw bones (in humans, the maxilla and the mandible). The structures are covered by gums as part of the oral cavity. The synonymous ter ...
with the tongue, when placed between
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s. In London English, the flapped is perceived as a casual pronunciation intermediate between the "posh" affricate and the "rough" glottal stop . In some varieties, , the voiced counterpart of , may also be frequently pronounced as a flap in such positions, making pairs of words like ''latter'' and ''ladder'' sound similar or identical. In similar positions, the combination may be pronounced as a
nasalized In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is . In the Internationa ...
flap , making ''winter'' sound similar or identical to ''winner''. Flapping of is sometimes perceived as the replacement of with ; for example, the word ''butter'' pronounced with flapping may be heard as "budder".E.g. in . In other dialects of English, such as
South African English South African English (SAfrE, SAfrEng, SAE, en-ZA) is the set of English language dialects native to South Africans. History British settlers first arrived in the South African region in 1795, when they established a military holding op ...
,
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, some
Northern England English The English language in Northern England has been shaped by the region's history of settlement and migration, and today encompasses a group of related dialects known as Northern England English (or, simply, Northern English in the United Kingd ...
(like
Scouse Scouse (; formally known as Liverpool English or Merseyside English) is an Accent (dialect), accent and dialect of English language, English associated with Liverpool and the surrounding county of Merseyside. The Scouse accent is highly dis ...
), and older varieties of
Received Pronunciation Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent traditionally regarded as the Standard language, standard and most Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been ...
, the flap is a variant of (see
Pronunciation of English Like many other languages, English language, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both History of the English language, historically and from List of dialects of the English language, dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regiona ...
).


Terminology and articulation

The terms ''flap'' and ''tap'' are often used synonymously, although some authors make a distinction between them. When the distinction is made, a flap involves a rapid backward and forward movement of the tongue tip, while a tap involves an upward and downward movement. Linguists disagree on whether the sound produced in the present process is a flap or a tap, and by extension on whether the process is better called ''flapping'' or ''tapping'', while ''flapping'' has traditionally been more widely used. identify four types of sounds produced in the process: alveolar tap, down-flap, up-flap, and postalveolar tap (found in ''autumn'', ''Berta'', ''otter'', and ''murder'', respectively). In
Cockney Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or b ...
, another voiced variant of that has been reported to occur to coexist with the alveolar tap (and other allophones, such as the very common
glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
) is a simple
voiced alveolar stop The voiced alveolar, dental and postalveolar plosives (or stops) are types of consonantal sounds used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosiv ...
, which occurs especially in the words ''little'' , ''hospital'' and ''whatever'' . That too results in a (variable) merger with , whereas the tap does not. In
Cardiff English The Cardiff accent, also known as Cardiff English, is the regional accent of English, and a variety of Welsh English, as spoken in and around the city of Cardiff, and is somewhat distinctive in Wales, compared with other Welsh accents. Its pit ...
, the alveolar tap is less rapid than the corresponding sound in traditional RP, being more similar to . It also involves a larger part of the tongue. Thus, the typical Cardiff pronunciation of ''hospital'' as or is quite similar to Cockney , though it does not involve a neutralization of the flap with .


Distribution

Flapping of and is a prominent feature of
North American English North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), v ...
. Some linguists consider it obligatory for most American dialects to flap between a stressed and an unstressed vowel. Flapping of also occurs in
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,
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and (especially
Northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ra ...
)
Irish English Hiberno-English (from Latin ''Hibernia'': "Ireland"), and in ga, Béarla na hÉireann. or Irish English, also formerly Anglo-Irish, is the set of English dialects native to the island of Ireland (including both the Republic of Ireland a ...
, and more infrequently or variably in
South African English South African English (SAfrE, SAfrEng, SAE, en-ZA) is the set of English language dialects native to South Africans. History British settlers first arrived in the South African region in 1795, when they established a military holding op ...
,
Cockney Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or b ...
, and
Received Pronunciation Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent traditionally regarded as the Standard language, standard and most Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been ...
. The exact conditions for flapping in North American English are unknown, although it is widely understood that it occurs in an alveolar stop, or , when placed between two vowels, provided the second vowel is unstressed (as in ''butter'', ''writing'', ''wedding'', ''loader''). Across word boundaries, however, it can occur between any two vowels, provided the second vowel begins a word (as in ''get over'' ). This extends to morphological boundaries within compound words (as in ''whatever'' ). In addition to vowels, segments that may precede the flap include (as in ''party'') and occasionally (as in ''faulty''). Flapping after is more common in Canadian English than in American English.
Syllabic Syllabic may refer to: *Syllable, a unit of speech sound, considered the building block of words **Syllabic consonant, a consonant that forms the nucleus of a syllable *Syllabary, writing system using symbols for syllables *Abugida, writing system ...
may also follow the flap (as in ''bottle''). Flapping of before syllabic (as in ''button'') is observed in Australian English, while (with
nasal release In phonetics, a nasal release is the release of a stop consonant into a nasal. Such sounds are transcribed in the IPA with superscript nasal letters, for example as in English ''catnip'' . In English words such as ''sudden'' in which historicall ...
) and ( ''t''-glottalization) are the only possibilities in North American English.
Morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...
-internally, the vowel following the flap must not only be unstressed but also be a reduced one (namely , morpheme-final or prevocalic , or preceding , , etc.), so words like ''botox'', ''retail'', and ''latex'' are not flapped in spite of the primary stress on the first syllables, while ''pity'', ''motto'', and ''Keating'' can be. The second syllables in the former set of words can thus be considered as having
secondary stress Secondary stress (or obsolete: secondary accent) is the weaker of two degrees of stress in the pronunciation of a word, the stronger degree of stress being called ''primary''. The International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for secondary stress is a ...
. Word-medial flapping is also prohibited in
foot The foot ( : feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made ...
-initial positions. This prevents words such as ''militaristic'', ''spirantization'', and ''Mediterranean'' from flapping, despite ''capitalistic'' and ''alphabetization'', for example, being flapped. This is known as the Withgott effect. In North American English, the cluster (but not ) in the same environment as flapped may be realized as a nasal flap . Intervocalic is also often realized as a nasal flap, so words like ''winter'' and ''winner'' can become homophonous. According to , in the United States, Southerners tend to pronounce ''winter'' and ''winner'' identically, while Northerners, especially those from the east coast, tend to retain the distinction, pronouncing ''winter'' with or and ''winner'' with . Given these intricacies, it is difficult to formulate a
phonological rule A phonological rule is a formal way of expressing a systematic phonological or morphophonological process or diachronic sound change in language. Phonological rules are commonly used in generative phonology as a notation to capture sound-related o ...
that accurately predicts flapping. Nevertheless, postulates that it applies to alveolar stops:
*after a
sonorant In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are ...
other than , , or , but with restrictions on ; *before an unstressed vowel within words, or before any vowel across a word boundary; *when not in foot-initial position.
Exceptions include the preposition/particle ''to'' and words derived from it, such as ''today'', ''tonight'', ''tomorrow'', and ''together'', wherein may be flapped when intervocalic (as in ''go to sleep'' ). In Australian English, numerals ''thirteen'', ''fourteen'', and ''eighteen'' are often flapped despite the second vowel being stressed. In a handful of words such as ''seventy'', ''ninety'', and ''carpenter'', is frequently pronounced as , retaining and voicing , although it may still become in rapid speech.


Homophony

Flapping is a specific type of
lenition In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonority hierarchy, sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronic analysis, s ...
, specifically
intervocalic In phonetics and phonology, an intervocalic consonant is a consonant that occurs between two vowels. Intervocalic consonants are often associated with lenition, a phonetic process that causes consonants to weaken and eventually disappear entirel ...
weakening. It leads to the neutralization of the distinction between and in appropriate environments, a partial
merger Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
of the two phonemes, provided that both and are flapped. Some speakers, however, flap only but not . Yet, for a minority of speakers, the merger can occur only if neither sound is flapped. That is the case in Cockney, where is occasionally voiced to , yielding a variable merger of ''little'' and
Lidl Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG (; ) is a German international discount retailer chain that operates over 11,000 stores across Europe and the United States. Headquartered in Neckarsulm, Baden-Württemberg, the company belongs to the Schwarz Group, whi ...
. For speakers with the merger, the following utterances sound the same or almost the same: In accents characterized by
Canadian raising Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
, such words as ''riding'' and ''writing'' may be flapped yet still distinguished by the quality of the vowel: ''riding'' , ''writing'' . Vowel duration may also be different, with a longer vowel before than before , due to pre-fortis clipping.


Withgott effect

In a dissertation in 1982, M.M. Withgott demonstrated that, among speakers of
American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
, words seem to be chunked into pronunciation units she referred to as a foot, similar to a metrical unit in poetry. Such chunking was said to block flapping in the word ‘Mediterranean’ ( Medi[terranean.html"_;"title="erranean.html"_;"title="Medi[terranean">Medi[terranean">erranean.html"_;"title="Medi[terranean">Medi Medi[terranean.html"_;"title="erranean.html"_;"title="Medi[terranean">Medi[terranean">erranean.html"_;"title="Medi[terranean">Medi[terranean_cf._[_[sub[terranean">erranean">Medi[terranean.html"_;"title="erranean.html"_;"title="Medi[terranean">Medi[terranean">erranean.html"_;"title="Medi[terranean">Medi[terranean_cf._[_[sub[terranean)._How_a_word_is_chunked_relates_to_its_Morphological_derivation.html" ;"title="erranean_cf._[_[sub[terranean.html" ;"title="erranean">Medi[terranean.html" ;"title="erranean.html" ;"title="Medi[terranean">Medi[terranean">erranean.html" ;"title="Medi[terranean">Medi[terranean cf. [ [sub[terranean">erranean">Medi[terranean.html" ;"title="erranean.html" ;"title="Medi[terranean">Medi[terranean">erranean.html" ;"title="Medi[terranean">Medi[terranean cf. [ [sub[terranean). How a word is chunked relates to its Morphological derivation">morphological derivation, as seen by contrasting morphologically similar pairs such as the following (where the vertical bar shows where Withgott argued there is boundary between neighboring feet): The medial ''t'' in ''càpitalístic'' can be flapped as easily as in post-stress ''cátty'' [ˈkʰæɾi], in contrast to the medial ''t'' in ''mìlitarístic'', which comes at the beginning of a foot, and so must be pronounced as [tÊ°], like a ''t'' at the beginning of a word. Long, seemingly monomorphemic words also are chunked in English for purposes of pronunciation. In such words €™s — as well as the other unvoiced stops — are pronounced like initial segments whenever they receive secondary
stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
or are at the beginning of a foot: ''Navra tilóva'' ''Abra cadábra'' ''Ala kazám'' ''Rázz matàzz'' But: ''Fliberti gibety'' ''Humu humu nuku nuku apu a‘a''


T-to-R rule

The origins of the T-to-R rule lie in the flapping of and the subsequent reinterpretation of the flap as , which was then followed by the use of the prevailing variant of , namely the approximant . It is applied in
Northern England English The English language in Northern England has been shaped by the region's history of settlement and migration, and today encompasses a group of related dialects known as Northern England English (or, simply, Northern English in the United Kingd ...
and it is always stigmatized. The application of that rule means that ''shut'' in the phrasal verb ''to shut up'' has a different phonemic form than the citation form of the verb ''to shut'' . The rule is typically not applied in the word-internal position. The T-to-R rule has also been reported to occur in the
Cardiff dialect The Cardiff accent, also known as Cardiff English, is the regional accent of English, and a variety of Welsh English, as spoken in and around the city of Cardiff, and is somewhat distinctive in Wales, compared with other Welsh accents. Its pit ...
(where the merged consonant can surface as either an approximant or a flap) and
South African English South African English (SAfrE, SAfrEng, SAE, en-ZA) is the set of English language dialects native to South Africans. History British settlers first arrived in the South African region in 1795, when they established a military holding op ...
(where only a flap is possible). In the Cardiff dialect, the rule is typically applied between any vowel (including long vowels) and or the reduced (also across word boundaries), so that ''starting'' and ''starring'' can be homophonous as . In South African English, the merger is possible only for those speakers who use the flapped allophone of (making the ''starting''–''starring'' minimal pair homophonous as ), otherwise the sounds are distinguished as a flap (or a voiceless stop) for () vs. approximant for (). There, the merger occurs word-internally between vowels in those environments where flapping is possible in North American English.


See also

*
Phonological history of English consonants This article describes those aspects of the phonological history of the English language which concern consonants. Consonant clusters H-cluster reductions * Reduction of /hw/ – to /h/ in a few words (such as ''who''), but usually to , for t ...
*
Regional accents of English Spoken English language, English shows great variation across regions where it is the predominant language. For example, the United Kingdom has the largest variation of accents of any country in the world, and therefore no single "British accen ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

*Withgott, M. Margaret. 1982. Segmental Evidence for Phonological Constituents. Ph.D. Dissertation for the University of Texas at Austin. *Iverson, Gregory K. and Sang-Cheol Ahn. 2004
''English Voicing in Dimensional Theory''
Language Sciences (Phonology of English). *Kahn, Daniel. 1976. ''Syllable-Based Generalizations in English Phonology''. Ph.D. Dissertation for the University of Massachusetts reproduced by I.U. Linguistics Club. * Steriade, Donca. 1999. ''Paradigm uniformity and the phonetics-phonology boundary''. In M. Broe and J. Pierrehumbert (eds.), ''Papers in Laboratory Phonology V: Acquisition and the lexicon'', 313-334. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{History of English English phonology North American English Australian English New Zealand English Splits and mergers in English phonology