Tap and flap consonants

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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.

Contrast with stops and trills[]

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.

Tap vs. flap[]

Many linguists use the terms tap and flap indiscriminately. Peter Ladefoged proposed for a while that it might be useful to distinguish between them. However, his usage was inconsistent and contradicted itself even between different editions of the same text.^[1] One proposed version of the distinction was that a tap strikes its point of contact directly, as a very brief stop, but 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."

Later, however, he used the term flap in all cases.^[2] Subsequent work on the labiodental flap has clarified the issue: flaps involve retraction of the active articulator, and a forward-striking movement.^[3]

For linguists who make the distinction, the alveolar flap is transcribed as a fish-hook ar, [ɾ], and the tap can be transcribed as a small capital D, [ᴅ], which is not recognized by the IPA, or by [d̆].^[4] In IPA terms the retroflex flap [ɽ] symbol captures the initial retraction and subsequent forward movement of the tongue tip involved. Otherwise, alveolars are typically called taps, and other articulations are called flaps.

A few languages have been reported to contrast a tap and a flap 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,^[5] and Kamviri, which also has apical alveolar taps and flaps.^[6]

IPA symbols[]

The tap and flap consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

The Kiel Convention of the IPA recommended that for other taps and flaps, a homorganic consonant, such as a stop or trill, should be used with a breve diacritic:

Tap or flaps: where no independent symbol for a tap is provided, the breve diacritic should be used, e.g. [ʀ̆] or [n̆].^[7]

However, the former could be mistaken for a short trill, and is more clearly transcribed ⟨ɢ̆⟩, whereas for a nasal tap the unambiguous transcription ⟨ɾ̃⟩ is generally used.

Types of taps and flaps[]