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, contradicting itself even between different editions of the same text. One proposed version of the distinction was that a tap strikes its point of contact directly, as a very brief stop, whereas 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 no longer felt this to be a useful distinction, and preferred the term flap in all cases. For linguists that do make the distinction, the alveolar tap is transcribed as a fish-hook ar, while the flap is transcribed as a small capital dee, which is not recognized by the IPA. Otherwise alveolars are typically called taps, and other articulations flaps. No language is known to contrast a tap and a flap at the same place of articulation.
Read more about this topic: Flap Consonant
Famous quotes containing the words tap and/or flap:
“A book is like a man—clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.”
—John Steinbeck (1902–1968)
“Let Sporus tremble—‘What? That thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass’s milk?
Satire or sense, alas, can Sporus feel,
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?’
Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne’er tastes, and beauty ne’er enjoys:”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)