American English Flapping: Perceptual and Acoustic Evidence Against Paradigm Uniformity with Phonetic Features

This study investigates the claim that flapping patterns in American English are subject to phonetic paradigm uniformity constraints based on the phonetic feature [extra short closure], as proposed in Steriade (2000).

The results of this study reveal that speakers do not maintain uniform paradigms with regard to flapping and that [extra short closure] is not an invariant acoustic cue for flap identification and therefore a questionable candidate for a phonetic uniformity constraint in the first place. American English flapping patterns therefore do not support a collapse of the phonetic and phonological components of grammar, as argued in Steriade (2000).