Glottal stop
From Freepedia
| IPA – number | 113 |
| IPA – text | ʔ |
| IPA – image | Image:Xsampa-questionmark.png |
| entity | ʔ |
| X-SAMPA | ? |
| Kirshenbaum | ? |
| Sound sample ▶(?) | |
|---|---|
The glottal stop or voiceless glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ʔ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ?. The glottal stop is the sound made when the vocal cords are pressed together, and is the sound in the middle of the interjection uh-oh.
Contents |
Features
Features of the glottal stop:
- Its manner of articulation is plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
- Its place of articulation is glottal which means it is articulated by the vocal folds.
- Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
- It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
- Because it is pronounced in the throat, without a component in the mouth, the central/lateral dichotomy does not apply.
- The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.
In English
There are few words in English that universally contain a glottal stop. The best known example is the interjection "uh-oh".
However, in many dialects of English, glottal stop is an allophone of /t/ in final position, such as the "t" in habit or pat. In some dialects (for example Cockney, Estuary English and many other non-standard varieties) the glottal stop is also an allophone of /t/ in medial position, such as in the word bottle or fatter. In many dialects, even those where a medial /t/ is not in general replaced by a glottal stop, a /t/ followed by a syllabic /n/ is often replaced by a glottal stop, for example button or fatten. Besides dialect variation, this may also depend on whether the speaker is speaking naturally or consciously articulating consonants for clarity. More rarely, glottal stop may be an allophone of /k/ in medial or final position.
With many Yorkshire dialects, a glottalized /t/ is used as a replacement of the word "the", as shown in the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition sketch by Monty Python, where Graham Chapman states "There's trouble at t' mill!".
Finally, there are loanwords into English, usually from languages where the glottal stop is a phoneme, where a glottal stop is part of the accepted pronunciation, for example Hawai‘ian ‘a‘a.
In other languages
In many languages, the glottal stop is a full phoneme. In languages using the Latin alphabet, it is often written as an opening single quote ‘, as in Hawai`ian. Other languages, such as Danish, have the glottal stop as a suprasegmental feature.
Arabic
In Arabic, the glottal stop is a full phoneme, represented by the letter ء (hamza).
Danish
Danish has a suprasegmental feature called the stød, which may be realised as a glottal stop. It is seldom indicated by the orthography, although occasionally it is written d, for example compare Danish hund (dog) /hunʔ/ with hun (she) /hun/. The function of the glottal stop in Danish may be compared to the function of the two kinds of stress in Swedish and Norwegian.
Dutch
In Dutch, the glottal stop is not phonemic, but it is inserted in multi-morphemic words before morphemes that begin with a vowel, for example beamen ("to endorse"), where the glottal stop is inserted after the prefix "be-".
Finnish
In Finnish, the glottal stop may be used to separate vowels of different words; for example, anna omena [ɑnːɑʔomenɑ], linja-auto [linjɑʔɑuto]. In spelling, it may be indicated by a space (separate words), or a hyphen (identical vowels adjacent in compound words), or with no notation at all. Short, stressed vowels may trigger the introduction of a glottal stop; arguably, there is a minimal pair for the word tienesteillä between ['tienʔesteillæ] "with road blockages" and ['tienesteillæ] "with earnings". In casual speech, however, the glottal stop is not used much, and all these cases may equally well be rendered with different degrees and placements of stress.
The colloquial spoken Finnish exhibits a completely different phenomenon, where the syncope of word-final /n/ actually produces a hiatus or a glottal stop. This makes the glottal stop a regular genitive case marker in e.g. the Savo dialect. For example, standard se on ollut "it has been" is rendered as se o ollu ['seoʔollu]. More often than not, this glottal stop is immediately assimilated to the following consonant as per regular sandhi, e.g. standard se on minun "it is mine" to se o mu [seommu].
German
In German, like Dutch, the glottal stop is not phonemic, but in northern and central Germany it is inserted in multi-morphemic words, for example Beamter ("civil servant") or beeilen ("hurry"). Otherwise the glottal stop is only used in front of words (or, for faster speakers, sentences) that begin with a vowel.
Hawaiian
In Hawaiian, the glottal stop is a full phoneme. It is written as an opening single quote ‘, which is called ‘okina. A glottal stop often occurs between repeated vowels (for example Hawai‘i), but as the example ‘okina indicates, this is not the only place where a glottal stop may occur.
Because the number of native speakers has declined recently, many Hawaiian words are more widely known from their adoption into English, or by English speakers that learn Hawaiian as a second language. Although a few English speakers may correctly pronounce the glottal stop in Hawaiian words, the vast majority do not. For example, in Hawai‘i, the glottal stop and final /i/ are often omitted.
Hebrew
In Hebrew, the glottal stop is a full phoneme. It is denoted by the letter א.
Maltese
In Maltese, the glottal stop is a full phoneme. It is denoted by the letter q.
Võro
In Võro, the glottal stop is a full phoneme. It is denoted by the letter q.
Other
Other examples of languages using a phonemic glottal stop are Nahuatl (and many other Native American languages), Samoan and the constructed Klingon language from the TV series Star Trek.
See also
| Consonants (List, table) | See also: IPA, Vowels | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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