Voiceless dental and alveolar taps and flaps
Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ɾ̥⟩ in IPA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Voiceless alveolar and dental taps (or flaps) are a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages, though only reported to exist as an allophone. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɾ̥⟩, a combination of the letter for the voiced alveolar tap/flap and a diacritic indicating voicelessness.
IPA number124 402A
X-SAMPA
4_0| Voiceless alveolar tap | |
|---|---|
| ɾ̥ | |
| IPA number | 124 402A |
| Audio sample | |
| Encoding | |
| X-SAMPA | 4_0 |
A similar sound, a voiceless alveolar tapped fricative reported for some languages including English, is actually a very brief voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative.[citation needed]
Features
Features of a voiceless 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 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 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.
Occurrence
Dental
Alveolar
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bengali[1] | আবার | [ˈäbäɾ̥] | 'again' | Possible allophone of /ɹ/ in the syllable coda.[1] See Bengali phonology | |
| Catalan | Many Balearic speakers[2] | mar | [ˈmɑɾ̥] | 'sea' | Apical. Possible allophone of /ɾ/ in the syllable coda. See Catalan phonology |
| South-western Catalonia[2] | |||||
| Valencian[2] | |||||
| English | Irish | three | [θɾ̊iː] | 'three' | Conservative accents. Corresponds to [ɹ ~ ɻ ~ ʁ] in other accents. |
| Scottish[3] | Most speakers. Others use [ɹ ~ r]. | ||||
| Older Received Pronunciation[4] | Allophone of /ɹ/. | ||||
| Scouse[3] | |||||
| South African[3] | Broad accents. Can be [ɹ ~ r] instead. | ||||
| Greek | Cypriot | αρφός | [ɐɾ̥ˈfo̞s] | 'brother' | Allophone of /ɾ/ before voiceless consonants. May be a voiceless alveolar trill instead |
| Icelandic | hrafn | [ˈɾ̥apn̪̊] | 'raven' | Realization of /r̥/ for some speakers. Also illustrates /n̥/. See Icelandic phonology | |
| Portuguese | European[5] | assar | [əˈsäɾ̥] | 'to bake' | Apparent allophone of /ɾ/; distribution unclear, but common in the coda in Jesus (2001)'s corpus. See Portuguese phonology |
| Turkish | bir | [biɾ̝̊] | 'one' | /ɾ/ is frequently devoiced word-finally and before a voiceless consonant. See Turkish phonology | |
| Wu Chinese | Xuanzhou Wu (Nanling variety) | 弟 | /ɾ̥ɦi˨˦/ | 'brother' | /ɾ̥ɦ/ corresponds to /d/ in other varieties (cf. Shanghainese /di˩˦/). Xuanzhou varieties tend to have /ɾ/ as their primary realisation of this phoneme (cf. Tonglingese /ɾɦi˧˦/) |