Flapping in American English

[Hiromi Morikawa]

I am posting a query on behalf of someone who is not on Info-CHILDES.  A
direct reply to Tomomi will be much appreciated.  But I'd also be happy to
forward any replies to her.  Thank you in advance.

Hiromi Morikawa
Research Associate
Life Span Insitute / Child Language Program
University of Kansas
hiromi at ukans.edu


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I am now reserching Japanese child's phonological acquisition and
would like to know about the AE voiced dental-alveolar flap /r/
in order to compare to that of Japanese /r/.

It is well-known fact of English that both /t/ and /d/ undergo a rule of
flapping where each if produced as /r/.
I would like to know when American children determine the surface form /r/
is the surface neutralisation of two phonemes.

The reason that I want to know about AE flapping is that Japanese /r/ is
very similar to that of AE flapping /r/, and Japanese children tend to
substitute /r/ to /d/ or vise virsa. If I could find some ideas on the
acquisition of 'flapping' in American English, that will be very supportive
for developing my argument on the acquisition of Japanese /d/ and /r/.

If you have any idea, I would be very pleased if you would reply me.

I cannot find any reference at all in England....

Many thanks,
Tomomi Utsunomiya
tomoutsu at hotmail.com

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