Other Definitions
flapping (dict)
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FlappingThis page discusses a phenomenon in the phonology of English. For other uses, see Flap. Flapping is a phonological process found in many dialects of English, especially American English and Canadian English, by which intervocalic and surface as the alveolar flap before an unstressed syllable. Flapping is a specific type of lenition, specifically intervocalic weakening. For people with the merger these following words sound the same or almost the same: - matter/madder
- grater/grader
- metal/medal
The merger does not occur when an intervocalic /t/ or /d/ is followed by a syllabic 'n', so written and ridden remain distinct, nor does it occur when the /t/ or /d/ belongs to a second stressed syllable in the word, as in retail. 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 Canadians, riding is while writing is . The cluster can also be flapped; the IPA symbol for a nasal flap is , but articulatorily this is nothing more than an ultrashort . As a result, in quick speech, words like winner and winter can become homophonous. Flapping also occurs in other languages, such as Western Apache (and related languages). In Western Apache, intervocalic similarly is realized as in intervocalic position. This process occurs even over word boundaries. However, flapping is blocked when is the initial consonant of a stem (i.e. flapping occurs only when is stem-internal or in a prefix). Unlike English, flapping is not affected by suprasegmentals (i.e. stress or tone).
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