- Uvular flap
A uvular flap is not known to exist as a phoneme in any language. However, it has been reported as an allophone of other sounds in various languages:
*Of an initialglottal stop in Southern Okanagan, ["Uvular-Pharyngeal Resonants in Interior Salish." M. Dale Kinkade. "International Journal of American Linguistics," Vol. 33, No. 3 (Jul., 1967), pp. 228-234]
*Of IPA|/ɡ/ in unstressed syllables in Supyire, ["A Grammar of Supyire." Robert Carlson (1994), Walter de Gruyter]
*Of the velar lateral fricative IPA|// in Wahgi. ["Wahgi Phonology and Morphology." Donald J. Phillips, 1976]More commonly, it is said to vary with the much more frequent
uvular trill , and is most likely a single-contact trill rather than an actual flap in these languages. (The primary difference between a flap and a trill is that of the airstream, not the number of contacts.)There is no dedicated symbol for this sound in the IPA. It can be transcribed by adding a 'short' diacritic to the symbol for the plosive or approximant, IPA| [ɢ̆] or IPA| [ʁ̆] , but normally it is covered by the symbol for the uvular trill, IPA|ʀ, since the two never contrast.
Refereneces
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
