Lateral flap

From MedBib.com - Medicine & Nature

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 is quite common.
• A retroflex lateral flap is found in the Iwaidja language of Australia.
• A palatal lateral flap may also occur in Iwaidja, but is uncertain.
• A velar lateral flap occurs allophonically in Melpa and a few other languages of New Guinea.

Features

Features of lateral flap:

• Its manner of articulation is flap, which means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.
• It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the sides of the tongue, rather than the middle of the tongue.

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