earticle

영어

This paper aims to investigate flapping (or tapping) in General American English within a constraint-based theory. This phonological process changes /t/ and /d/ to a flap [ɾ] usually in intervocalic position, as illustrated in examples like water, lady, creator, reader, rider, get out, read it, etc. We have reviewed previous analyses of flapping and pointed out the controversial issues of syllabification/ ambisyllabicity and the scope of analysis concerning flapping occurring within a word and across word boundary. From a perspective of the framework of a constraint-based theory, we could analyze General American English flapping within words and across word boundary in a unified way. In doing so, we proposed four constraints and their hierarchy—*[+ap]t(h)/d[+syl, -str], *[+ap]t/ɾ[+syl, +str], *(...[+ap, +FIC] t(h)/d#[+syl]...)U >> IDENT-IO[son/asp], which reflect some factors such as stress and phonological utterance and exclude syllable boundary.