Why does flapping (t →ɾ) in American English occur in 'butter' but not in 'tub'?

💡 Explanation

Flapping is blocked in 'tub' because the underlying representation has a word-final /b/, which does not allow the /t/ to be intervocalic. Therefore, the phonological environment for flapping is not met, rather than stress, assimilation, or lexical bias altering the rule.

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