Keywords

American English /t, d/ flapping environments, intervocalic tap realization patterns, unstressed-syllable flapping conditioning, Sociophonetic variation in tap usage

Abstract

Taps are allophones of /t/ and /d/ in American English

Between two vowels where the second is unstressed water, data, cheetah, scooter, odor, editor, forty, item, ladle, coding, etc. [ɾ] = voiced, alveolar tap.

Similar environment, but with a preceding nasal winter = winner, panting = panning [ɾ̃] = voiced, nasalized, alveolar tap.

Hypotheses:

For some speakers, [ɾ] is an allophone of /ɹ/ after /θ/, i.e. they have (thr)-flapping.
This variant is socially conditioned.
This variant has articulatory motivations.

Original Publication Citation

Joseph A. Stanley. “(thr)-tapping in American English: Articulatory motivations and social factors.” The 5th Annual Linguistics conference at UGA (LCUGA5). Athens, GA. October 12–13, 2018.