Re: Vibrants (was: New conlang)

On Wed, 3 Aug 2005 12:20:54 +0300, John Vertical <johnvertical@...>
wrote:

>Thanks for the answers - I have come across the term "vibrant" already
>a few times, but I wasn't sure if it included all 3 of trills, taps &
>flaps.
I'd thought it did, but I doubt that it is used consistently - some authors
seem to be more inclusive in its use, some less.

Nowadays 'rhotic' is usually used to cover all 'r'-type sounds including
apical taps, flaps, trills, fricatives & approximants and uvular
trills/taps, to the specific exclusion of labial trills.

>I have no idea why is there need to differentiate the terms "tap" and
>"percussive" ... are you insinuating that the latter term was earlier used
>more widely??
No - only that I have only noted it used specifically to refer to the very
small set of unusual sounds I referred to. I can't recall coming
across 'percussive' as a term for taps/trills in the English-language
phonetic literature.

>I think I'll also note that it seems to me that some trills are inherently
>"flapped" (/B\/) and others "tapped" (/r R\/).
Well, labial trills are inherently pre-stopped (ie, aways begin with a
labial stop articulation) while apical and dorsal trills are not. In the
phonetic literature tap usually refers to either a motion upward of the
tongue tip or more generally a very brief contact, while flap generally
refers to a forward or downward motion (in particular, this describes the
distinction between a dental or alveolar tap vs a postalveolar/retroflex
flap).


-Bfowol