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species are known occasionally to exhibit exceptional phonological shapes (James
Roberts, per. comm.), so we make special note of these terms as well.
3. Frequency of occurrence. If the labial flap is rare compared to other sounds in
the language, this may call into question to what extent it has been incorporated into the
phonological system. Judging if a sound is common or rare can be difficult. For example,
if an author cites just a handful of examples of words with the sound in the language, that
does not necessarily mean that the sound is rare. On the other hand, if the sound is
attested in over a dozen lexical items, we would need to seriously consider its inclusion in
the phonological system. In judging the frequency of a sound, we have usually relied on
the judgment of the author, i.e. we report if the author says explicitly that the sound is
rare.
4. Distribution within the word. If the labial flap occurs in both word-initial and
word-medial position, this is evidence that the sound has been more fully incorporated
into the phonological system of the language. In most cases the labial flap does not occur
in consonant clusters (consonant clusters are limited in many of these languages), so the
word-medial position is in fact an intervocalic environment.
5. Researcher’s judgments. We note if a researcher considers the sound to be
phonemic in a given language. Examples of this include if the researcher specifically
calls the sound a phoneme, or if the sound appears in a phoneme chart. While this is not
proof of phonemic status per se, it may be an indication that the researcher is aware of
additional data leading to that conclusion that are not reported in the source.
6. Co-occurrence with vowels. For a few languages, we note if there are
restrictions on which vowels can follow the labial flap. If there is evidence of
complementary distribution of the labial flap with another labial sound before vowels,
then the labial flap could be considered an allophone of the other labial sound, rather than
a separate phoneme.
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