Inphonetics andphonology, anintervocalic consonant is aconsonant that occurs between twovowels.[1]: 158 Intervocalic consonants are often associated withlenition, a phonetic process that causes consonants to weaken and eventually disappear entirely.[citation needed] An example of such a change inEnglish isintervocalic alveolar flapping, a process (especially inNorth American andAustralian English) that, impressionistically speaking, replaces /t/ with /d/. For example, "metal" is pronounced[mɛɾl]; "batter" sounds like['bæ.ɾɚ]. (More precisely, both /t/ and /d/ are pronounced as thealveolar tap[ɾ].) In North American English, the weakening is variable across word boundaries, such that the /t/ of "see youtomorrow" might be pronounced as either[ɾ] or[tʰ].[1]: 96 Some languages have intervocalic-weakening processes fully active word-internally and in connected discourse. For example, inSpanish, /d/ is regularly pronounced like[ð] in the words "todo"[ˈtoðo] (meaning "all") and "la duna[laˈðuna]", meaning "the dune" (but[ˈduna] if the word is pronounced alone).[citation needed]
