Voiceless dental and alveolar taps and flaps
Voiceless alveolar and dental taps are a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages, though only reported to exist as an allophone. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is, a combination of the letter for the voiced alveolar tap/flap and a diacritic indicating voicelessness.
A voiceless alveolar tapped fricative reported from some languages is actually a very brief voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative.
Features
Features of a voiceless alveolar tap or flap:- Its manner of articulation is tap or flap, which means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that the tongue makes very brief contact.
- Its place of articulation is dental or alveolar, which means it is articulated behind upper front teeth or at the alveolar ridge. It is most often apical, which means that it is pronounced with the tip of the tongue.