| Flapping |
Website Links For History |
Information AboutFlapping |
|
''This page discusses a phonological phenomenon. For other uses, see Flap .'' PHONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF ENGLISH T Flapping Flapping (more accurately 'tapping', see below) is a Phonological process found in many dialects of English , especially American , Canadian and Australian English , by which prevocalic and surface as the Alveolar Tap after sonorants other than ŋ, m, and (in some environments) l.
The term 'flap' is often used as a synonym for the term 'tap', but the two can be distinguished phonetically. A 'flap' involves a rapid movement of the tongue tip from a retracted vertical position to a (more or less) horizontal position, during which the tongue tip brushes the alveolar ridge. A 'tap' involves a rapid backwards and forwards movement of the tongue tip. The sound referred to here is the Alveolar Tap , not the flap , and hence 'tapping' is the correct term from a phonetic point of view (see also Flap Consonant ). The term 'flapping' is, rather unfortunately, ingrained in much of the phonological literature, so it is retained here (but see Giegerich 1992: 225, 241). Flapping/tapping is a specific type of Lenition , specifically intervocalic weakening. For people with the merger these following words sound the same or almost the same:
For most (but not all) speakers the merger does not occur when an intervocalic or is followed by a syllabic 'n', so ''written'' and ''ridden'' remain distinct. A non-negligible number of speakers (including pockets in the Boston area) lack the rule that glottalizes t and d before syllabic n, and therefore flap/tap and in this environment. Pairs like potent : impotent, with the former having a preglottalized unreleased t or a glottal stop (but not a flap/tap) and the latter having either an aspirated t or a flap/tap, suggest that the level of stress on the preceding vowel may play a role in the applicability of glottalization and flapping/tapping before syllabic n. Flapping/tapping does not occur in most dialects when the or immediately precedes a stressed vowel, as in ''retail'', but can flap/tap in this environment when it spans a word boundary, as in "got it" --> , and when a word boundary is embedded within a word, as in "buttinsky". Australian English also flaps/taps word-internally before a stressed vowel in words like "fourteen". A previous version of this article referred to the same process in Cockney, but Cockney glottalises /t/ in this word. In many accents, such words as ''riding'' and ''writing'' continue to be distinguished by the preceding vowel: though the consonant distinction is neutralized, the underlying voice distinction continues to select the Allophone of the Phoneme preceding it. Thus for many North Americans, ''riding'' is while ''writing'' is . Vowel duration may also be different, with a longer vowel before tap realisations of /d/ than before tap realisations of /t/. At the phonetic level, the contrast between /t/ and /d/ may be maintained by these non-local cues, though as the cues are quite subtle, they may not be acquired/perceived by others. A merger of /t, d/ can then be said to have occurred. The cluster can also be flapped/tapped; the IPA symbol for a nasal tap is . As a result, in quick speech, words like ''winner'' and ''winter'' can become homophonous. Flapping/tapping does not occur for most speakers in words like 'carpenter' and 'ninety', which instead surface with . A similar process also occurs in other languages, such as Western Apache (and other Southern Athabaskan Languages ). In Western Apache, intervocalic similarly is realized as in intervocalic position. This process occurs even over word boundaries. However, tapping is blocked when is the initial consonant of a stem (in other words tapping occurs only when is stem-internal or in a prefix). Unlike English, tapping is not affected by suprasegmentals (in other words stress or tone). Giegerich, Heinz J. (1992). ''English Phonology'' Cambridge University Press. T-glottalization T-glottalization is a process that occurs for many English speakers, that causes the phoneme to be pronounced as the Glottal Stop in certain positions. In American English , is generally pronounced as when occurring before a syllabic 'n' as in "written" . In many dialects of English English , all intervocalic "t"'s are realized as . It's also quite common in many dialects to pronounce "t"'s in final position as . SEE ALSO |
|
|