Its manner of articulation is tap or flap, which means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (usually the tongue) is thrown against another.
Its place of articulation is retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated subapical (with the tip of the tongue curled up), but more generally, it means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical subapical articulation, the tongue contact can be apical (pointed) or laminal (flat).
Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
Apical postalveolar. Allophone of /l/, medially between vowels within the morpheme, and finally in the morpheme before a following vowel in the same word. It can be a postalveolar trill or simply [l] instead.[8]
^Bashir, Elena; J. Conners, Thomas (2019). "3.3.1". A Descriptive Grammar of Hindko, Panjabi, and Saraiki. Vol. 4 of Mouton-CASL Grammar Series. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 24. ISBN 9781614512257. Retroflex /ṇ/ and /ḷ/ (/ɳ/ and /ɭ/ in IPA) contrast with dental /n/ and /l/ in Lahore Panjabi, although this distinction is weakening with the younger generation of urban speakers. In this grammar we represent the retroflexion of nasals and laterals, while bearing in mind that in the current Panjabi {Shahmukhi} orthography /ṇ/ is represented only sporadically, and /ḷ/ is not represented at all.
Okada, Hideo (1999), "Japanese", in International Phonetic Association (ed.), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 117–119, ISBN 978-0-52163751-0
Tiwari, Bholanath (2004) [First published 1966], Hindī Bhāshā, Kitāb Mahal: Kitāb Mahal, ISBN 81-225-0017-X
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Vance, Timothy J. (2008), The Sounds of Japanese, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-5216-1754-3
Verstraten, Bart; van de Velde, Hans (2001). "Socio-geographical variation of /r/ in standard Dutch". In van de Velde, Hans; van Hout, Roeland (eds.). 'r-atics. Rapport d'Activités de l'Institut des Langues Vivantes et de Phonétique. Brussels: Etudes & Travaux. pp. 45–61. ISSN0777-3692.
Masica, Colin (1991). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-29944-2.