A glottal stop, glottal plosive, or glottal catch is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. It is familiar to English speakers as the catch in the middle of "uh-oh". The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .
As a result of the action of the glottis, glottal vibration either stops or becomes irregular with a low rate and sudden drop in intensity.
Features Features of a glottal stop:
Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the airflow is blocked entirely, the consonant is a plosive.
It has no phonation at all, as there is no airflow through the glottis. Because of this, the typical oral–nasal dichotomy does not apply. Glottal closure may be regarded as a phonation state, in which case the consonant is a segmental realization. The consonant may still be regarded as "voiceless" in the sense that it is produced without any vibration of the vocal cords.
Occurrence The table below demonstrates how widely glottal stops are found among the world's spoken languages: Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Abkhaz /ai 'no' See Abkhaz phonology. Adyghe /'ė 'arm/hand' Arabic Modern Standard /ʾaḡānī 'songs' See Arabic phonology, Hamza. Levantine and Egyptian/ša''a 'apartment' Corresponds to or in other dialects. See Levantine Arabic phonology and Egyptian Arabic phonology Fasi and Tlemcenian/'āl 'he said' Corresponds to or in other dialects. Bantawa 'drinking water' Bikol 'new' Blackfoot / 'duck' Bulgarian /ŭ-ŭ 'nope' Burmese /mrac mya: 'rivers' Cacua Cebuano 'believe' Chamorro 'shark' Chinese Mandarin Chinese / 'Xi An' See Standard Chinese phonology. Cantonese / 'love' See Cantonese phonology. Wu / 'superb' Hokkien / 'to suit' Cook Islands Māori 'one' Czech 'the other way around' See Czech phonology.Dahalo 'water' see Dahalo phonology Danish 'hand' One of the possible realizations of stød. Depending on the dialect and style of speech, it can be instead realized as laryngealisation of the preceding sound. See Danish phonology. Dutch 'to confirm' See Dutch phonology. English Multiple dialects (emphatic "am")) or 'I' Glottal stop before initial vowel at the start of a phrase. Elsewhere, optionally, to emphasize a word or separate it from the previous one. RP 'uh-oh' American Australian 'cat' Allophone of , /k/ or /p/. See glottalization, English phonology, and definite article reduction. GA Estuary Cockney Scottish Some Northern England 'the' Geordie 'thank you' Geordie 'people' RP and GA button 'button' German Northern 'civil servant' Generally all vowel onsets. See Standard German phonology. Hmong / 'two (2)' Guaraní 'Guaraní' Occurs only between vowels. Hawaiian 'black' See Hawaiian phonology. Hebrew /ma'amar 'article' Often elided in casual speech. See Modern Hebrew phonology. Icelandic 'but' Only used according to emphasis, never occurring in minimal pairs. Iloko 'bland tasting' Hyphen when occurring within the word. Indonesian 'meatball' Allophone of or in the syllable coda. Ingush / 'three' JapaneseKagoshima / 'neck' Javanese 'child' Allophone of in morpheme-final position.Jedek 'left side' Kabardian /'ė 'arm/hand' Kagayanen 'floor' Khasi 'cloud' Khmer / 'to clean' See Khmer phonology Korean /il 'one' In free variation with no glottal stop. Occurs only in initial position of a word. Malay Standard 'no' Allophone of final in the syllable coda, pronounced before consonants and at end of the a word. In other positions, has phonemic status only in loanwords from Arabic. See Malay phonologyKelantan-Pattani'to tie'Allophone of final in the syllable coda. Pronounced before consonants and at the end of a word.Terengganu Makassarese 'be exhausted' Written as takdokdok, taddoddok, taʼdoddoʼ, taqdoqdoq or taddoddoʼ in other orthography. Maltese 'cat' Māori Taranaki, Whanganui 'woman' Minangkabau 'you' Sometimes written without an apostrophe. Mutsun 'Ribes divaricatum' Mingrelian /?oropha 'love' Nahuatl 'father' Often left unwritten. Nez Perce 'black bear' Nheengatu 'sloth' Transcription (or absence thereof) varies. Nuxalk 'I, me' Ojibwe/'book', 'paper'Merges with in some dialects. See Ojibwe phonology. Okinawan/utu'sound' Persian /ma'ni 'meaning' See Persian phonology. Polish era [ʔɛra] 'era' Most often occurs as an anlaut of an initial vowel (Ala ‒> ). See Polish phonology#Glottal stop. Pirahã 'parent' Portuguese Vernacular Brazilian In European Portuguese, the "é é" interjection usually employs an epenthetic , being pronounced instead. 'yeah right'It may be used mostly as a general call of attention for disapproval, disagreement or inconsistency, but also serves as a synonym of the multiuse expression "eu, hein!". How to say 'eu, hein' in English – Adir Ferreira Idiomas Marginal sound. Does not occur after or before a consonant. In Brazilian casual speech, there is at least one –vowel length–pitch accent minimal pair (triply unusual, the ideophones short vs. long ). See Portuguese phonology. Some speakers 'to the class' Rotuman 'to box' Russianне-а / ne-a[ˈnʲeʔə]'nope' Samoan 'sickness/illness' Sardinian Some dialects of Barbagia 'a little' Intervocalic allophone of . Some dialects of Sarrabus 'the moon' Serbo-Croatian 'and then' Optionally inserted between vowels across word boundaries. See Serbo-Croatian phonology Seri 'I' Somali'calamity'though occurs before all vowels, it is only written medially and finally. See Somali phonology Spanish Nicaraguan 'higher' Marginal sound or allophone of between vowels in different words. Does not occur after or before a consonant. See Spanish phonology. Yucateco 'four years' Squamish Sḵwx̱wú7mesh sníchim 'Squamish language' Tagalog 'to poo' (fut.) See Tagalog phonology. Tahitian 'pig' Thai /'ā 'uncle/aunt' (father's younger sibling) Tongan 'stand' Tundra Nenets /vy' 'tundra' Vietnamese 'sultry' In free variation with no glottal stop. See Vietnamese phonology. Võro 'dogs' "q" is Võro plural marker (maa, kala, "land", "fish"; maaq, kalaq, "lands", "fishes"). Wagiman 'to eat' (perf.) Welayta 7írTi 'wet' Wallisian 'life'
Intervocalic position In many languages that do not allow a sequence of vowels (such as Persian), a glottal stop may be used epenthetically to prevent such a hiatus. There are intricate interactions between falling tone and the glottal stop in the histories of such languages as Danish (see stød), Cantonese and Thai.
In many languages, the unstressed intervocalic allophone of the glottal stop is a creaky-voiced glottal approximant. It is known to be contrastive in only one language, Gimi, in which it is the voiced equivalent of the stop.
Secondary articulation
Some languages have glottal stops with secondary articulation (approximant-like release). It has been noted that palatalized and labialized glottal stops, respectively and , are quite similar to the glottalized sonorants and , and either case may be analyzed instead as sequences, and ; the specific interpretation of these sounds is mostly dependent upon how they pattern with other sounds within a particular language's phonological structure.
Most languages that have secondarily articulated glottal stops have only one of either a palatalized or labialized variant, often in contrast with a plain glottal stop. However, the Abzakh dialect of Adyghe, a Northwest Caucasian language, Cicipu and Vadi, two Benue–Congo languages of the Kambari branch, and Bolyu, an Austroasiatic language, have all been reported to have a three-way contrast between plain, palatalized, and labialized glottal stops.
Some varieties of Arabic, such as Aleppo and Shihhi, have an allophonic pharyngealized glottal stop , typically classed as an emphatic consonant. This sound is also found as an allophone in Chechen, a Northeast Caucasian language. As with the ambiguity noted in the examples above, several Salishan languages have a very similar phoneme analyzed instead as a glottalized pharyngeal approximant .
Nasalization A few languages (such as Ganza and Tomo-Kan Dogon) have been reported to contain nasalized glottal stops that contrast with non-nasal ones in their phonemic inventories, and a few other languages (such as Kaingang and Standard Thai) have been reported to contain them as allophones in certain environments. While they are all commonly called nasal(ized) glottal stops, the phonological implications of such sounds vary, typically occurring as one of the following: Inducing nasalization on surrounding vowels, where their non-nasal counterparts do not (such as → ). Nasalizing as a result of adjacency to nasal vowels (such as → ). Exhibiting prenasalization or nasal release (such as or ). Similar features have been reported with the nature of creaky-voiced glottal approximants and their spread of creaky-voice to surrounding vowels or presence of pre-/post-creak.
However, the phonetic status of truly "nasalized" glottal stops is debated, depending on one's definition of nasality; similarly, although they may be contrastive in their underlying forms, a perceptual difference in their surface realizations is doubted. Some linguists have argued that because nasal airflow and glottal closure are mutually exclusive features, phonetic nasalized glottal stops are impossible entities. Other linguists have argued that because the gestural lowering of the velum (opening of the velopharyngeal port) that is associated with nasality is entirely compatible with glottal closure, they are not only possible but expected in some environments, particularly those where nasal harmony is not blocked by the presence of a glottal stop (such as in Sundanese, Acehnese, and Warao). Thus, the recognition of nasalized glottal stops as a phonetic possibility is a matter of whether nasality is defined as the presence of nasal airflow or by the exhibition of a lowered velum.
In English Replacement of /t/
In English, the glottal stop occurs as an open juncture (for example, between the vowel sounds in uh-oh!) and allophonically in t-glottalization. In British English, the glottal stop is most familiar in the Cockney pronunciation of "butter" as "bu'er". Geordie English often uses glottal stops for , and has a unique form of glottalization. Additionally, there is the glottal stop as a null onset for English; in other words, it is the non-phonemic glottal stop occurring before isolated or initial vowels.
Often a glottal stop happens at the beginning of vowel phonation after a silence.
Although this segment is not a phoneme in English, it occurs phonetically in nearly all dialects of English, as an allophone of in the syllable coda. Speakers of Cockney, Scottish English and several other British dialects also pronounce an intervocalic between vowels as in city. In Received Pronunciation, a glottal stop is inserted before a tautosyllabic voiceless stop: sto'p, tha't, kno'ck, wa'tch, lea'p, soa'k, hel'p, pin'ch.
In American English, is usually not aspirated in syllables ending either in (where is a vowel), such as "cat" or "outside"; or in an unstressed segment, such as "mountain" or "Manhattan". This is an unreleased stop , colloquially referred to as a "held t", as the airflow is stopped by tongue at the ridge behind the teeth. However, there is a trend of younger speakers in the Mid-Atlantic states to replace the "held t" with a glottal stop, so that "Manhattan" sounds like "Man-ha'in" or "Clinton" like "Cli(n)'in", where is the glottal stop. This may have crossed over from African American Vernacular English, particularly that of New York City.
Before initial vowels