Encyclopedia
Lateral flap
Family of consonant sounds
A lateral flap is a family of consonantal sounds, used in some spoken languages.
There are four attested or claimed lateral flaps in the world's languages:
- The alveolar lateral flap [ɺ] is quite common.
- A retroflex lateral flap [𝼈 ] ([ɭ̆ ]) is found throughout South Asia, from Pashtun to Oriya, in the Iwaidjan languages of Australia, and sporadically elsewhere.
- A palatal lateral flap [ʎ̆] has been described from Iwaidja, but the authors note that it may be a palatalized alveolar flap [ɺʲ].
- A velar lateral flap [ʟ̆] occurs allophonically in Melpa and a few other languages of New Guinea.
01Features
Features of lateral flap:
- Its manner of articulation is tap or flap, which means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (usually the tongue) is thrown against another.
- It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Lateral flap”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
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