Voiced dental and alveolar taps and flaps

The terms tap and flap are often used interchangeably. Peter Ladefoged proposed the distinction that a tap strikes its point of contact directly, as a very brief stop, and 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." That distinction between the alveolar tap and flap could be written in non-standard IPA with the tap as ⟨⟩ and the flap as ⟨⟩, the retroflex letter being used for the one that starts with the tongue tip curled back behind the alveolar ridge, though it could be written less ambiguously with the Americanist letter ⟨⟩ (or IPA ⟨⟩) for the tap and standard IPA ⟨⟩ for the flap. The distinction is noticeable in the speech of some American English speakers in distinguishing the words "potty" (tap) and "party" (flap).

For linguists who do not make the distinction, 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.

As a phoneme, the sound is analyzed as a rhotic consonant. In languages for which the segment is present but not phonemic, it is often an allophone of either an alveolar stop (, , or both) or a rhotic consonant.

If an alveolar flap is the only rhotic consonant in the language, it may be transcribed with ⟨⟩ in broad transcription, despite that symbol technically representing a trill.

A voiced alveolar tapped fricative is reported from some languages, which is a very brief voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative.

Features

Features of a voiced alveolar tap or flap:

• Its manner of articulation is tap or 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 dental or alveolar, which means it is articulated behind upper front teeth or at the alveolar ridge. It is most often apical, which means that it is pronounced with the tip of the tongue.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is a median consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream down the midline of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most speech sounds.