T - voicing in American English A comparison of initial d and voiced t

What is t - voicing?  striking characteristic of American pronunciation  occurs in words like water, better, waiting, 49ers quarterback  to non-American and English people it sounds like a /d/ rather than a /t/  phonetically it is not a plosive uTwo different manners of articulation Œalveolar tap (e.g. water, better) retroflex flap (e.g. dirty, party)

1 Alveolar tap  Occurs: uinter-vocalically in a word (pretty , water  ) uword-finally before a vowel (put it , light up   ) ufoot-internally after the nasal  as a nasalized tap  (winter , twenty  ) æ other realizations in AmEng: ltotal extinction  l“British style” 

2 retroflex flap  u is used before a vowel when the preceding consonant is the approximant /r/ l party  l forty 

The Recordings §female speakers from Illinois and Iowa è Northern accents §21 and 24 years old §reading coherent text §cassette tape computer §cut out single words §just “Iowa file” for presentation

A tap/flap has a different acoustic quality than a , therefore it is an oversimplification to call it . What are the differences in quality? è analysis in praat è Used words: l dinner  l pottery  l simplicity  l 49ers quarterback    

Initial  - dinner   release is marked by high intensity of higher formants  fifth formant at Hz has highest intensity  the lower formants are comparatively weak

Voiced tap  - pottery   in all frequency ranges relatively low intensity  highest intensity in first formant  voice bar at ~ 440 HZ  higher formants hardly visible

Voiced tap  - simplicity   voice bar at ~ 330 HZ  4th and 5th formant clearly visible, as intense as 1st formant è release u tap quality is similar to quality of initial  èsimilar contexts?

Voiced retroflex flap  - forty    voice bar at ~ 550 Hz  higher formants are less intense (no release)  very intense 2nd and 3rd formant è influence of preceding /r/ ? è difference between tap and flap

A tap/flap is not a 