Abstract
This study presents a detailed acoustic description of the /t, d/ flaps in American English, and the implications of this description for the formulation of phonological rules. The data base, a subset of the utterances described in the previous paper, contains minimal pairs of the types metal/medal, and polysyllabic words such as critical/medical. Our results show that dentals commonly labeled “flaps” fall into more than one category. For example, the durations and onset spectra of the /t/'s in waited and seating are measurably different, indicating a possible difference in the underlying production mechanisms. Our quantitative results suggest a reevaluation of the so-called flapping rule and its interaction with other phonological processes such as nasal deletion (as in winter) and vowel lengthing (as in waited/waded).
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