Glottal stop

This article is about the sound in spoken language. For the letter, see Glottal stop (letter). For consonants followed by superscript ˀ, see Glottalization.
Glottal stop
ʔ
IPA number 113
Encoding
Entity (decimal) ʔ
Unicode (hex) U+0294
X-SAMPA ?
Kirshenbaum ?
Braille ⠆ (braille pattern dots-23)
Sound
source · help

The glottal stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʔ⟩.

In English, the glottal stop is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh!. For most United States English speakers, a glottal stop is used as an allophone of /t/ between a vowel and "m" (as in atmosphere or Batman) or a syllabic "n" (as in button or mountain), except when talking slowly. In British English, the glottal stop is most familiar in the Cockney pronunciation of "butter" as "bu'er".

Features

Features of the glottal stop:

Phonology and symbolization of the glottal stop in selected languages

Although this segment is not a written[1] phoneme in English, it is present phonetically in nearly all dialects of English as an allophone of /t/ in the syllable coda. Speakers of Cockney, Scottish English and several other British dialects also pronounce an intervocalic /t/ between vowels as in city. In Received Pronunciation, a glottal stop is inserted before a tautosyllabic voiceless stop, e.g. sto’p, tha’t, kno’ck, wa’tch, also lea’p, soa’k, hel’p, pin’ch.[2]

In many languages that don't allow a sequence of vowels, such as Persian, the glottal stop may be used to break up such a hiatus. There are intricate interactions between falling tone and the glottal stop in the histories of such languages as Danish (cf. stød), Chinese and Thai.

In many languages, the unstressed intervocalic allophone of the glottal stop is a creaky-voiced glottal approximant. These are only known to be contrastive in one language, Gimi, where it is the voiced equivalent of the stop.

Writing

In the traditional Romanization of many languages, such as Arabic, the glottal stop is transcribed with an apostrophe, ⟨’⟩, and this is the source of the IPA character ⟨ʔ⟩. In many Polynesian languages that use the Latin alphabet, however, the glottal stop is written with a reversed apostrophe, ⟨‘⟩ (called ‘okina in Hawaiian and Samoan), which, confusingly, is also used to transcribe the Arabic ayin and is the source of the IPA character for the voiced pharyngeal fricative ⟨ʕ⟩. In Malay the glottal stop is represented by the letter ⟨k⟩, in Võro and Maltese by ⟨q⟩.

Road sign in British Columbia showing the use of 7 to represent /ʔ/ in the Squamish language.

Other scripts also have letters used for representing the glottal stop, such as the Hebrew letter aleph ⟨א⟩, and the Cyrillic letter palochka ⟨Ӏ⟩ used in several Caucasian languages. In Tundra Nenets it is represented by the letters apostrophe ⟨ʼ⟩ and double apostrophe ⟨ˮ⟩. In Japanese, glottal stops occur at the end of interjections of surprise or anger, and are represented by the character ⟨っ⟩.

In the graphic representation of most Philippine languages, the glottal stop has no consistent symbolization. In most cases, however, a word that begins with a vowel-letter (e.g. Tagalog aso, "dog") is always pronounced with an unrepresented glottal stop before that vowel (as also in Modern German and Hausa). Some orthographies employ a hyphen, instead of the reverse apostrophe, if the glottal stop occurs in the middle of the word (e.g. Tagalog pag-ibig, "love"; or Visayan gabi-i, "night"). When it occurs in the end of a Tagalog word, the last vowel is written with a circumflex accent (known as the pakupyâ), if both a stress and a glottal stop occurs at the final vowel (e.g. basâ, "wet"); or a grave accent (known as the paiwà), if the glottal stop occurs at the final vowel, but the stress occurs at the penultimate syllable (e.g. batà, "child").[3][4][5]

Some Canadian indigenous languages have adopted the phonetic symbol "ʔ" itself as part of their orthographies. In some of them, it occurs as a pair of uppercase and lowercase characters, Ɂ and ɂ.[6] Sometimes the number symbol 7 is used if the ʔ character is not available to the typesetter, and in some cases such as in the Squamish language, the 7 has become the preferred symbol.

In 2015, two women in the Northwest Territories challenged the territorial government over its refusal to permit them to use the ʔ character in their daughters' names: Sahaiʔa, a Chipewyan name, and Sakaeʔah, a Slavey name (the two names are actually cognates). The territory argued that territorial and federal identity documents were unable to accommodate the character. The women registered the names with hyphens instead of the ʔ, while continuing to challenge the policy.[7]

Use of the glottal stop is a distinct characteristic of the Southern Mainland Argyll dialects of Scottish Gaelic. In a such a dialect, the standard Gaelic phrase Tha Gàidhlig agam (I have Gaelic), would be rendered Tha Gàidhlig a'am.

Occurrence

This table demonstrates how widely the sound of glottal stop is found among the world's spoken languages. It is not intended to be a complete list. Any of these languages may have varieties not represented in the table.

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Abkhaz аи [ʔaj] 'no' See Abkhaz phonology.
Adyghe Iэ [ʔa] 'arm/hand'
Arabic Standard[8] أغاني [ʔaˈɣaːniː] 'songs' See Arabic phonology, Hamza.
Metropolitan[9] شقة [ˈʃæʔʔæ] 'apartment' Metropolitan dialects including Egyptian Arabic.[9] Corresponds to /q/ in Literary Arabic.
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic ܣܥܬ [sʔɐt] 'clock' or 'watch'
Bikol ba-go [ˈbaːʔɡo] 'new'
Burmese မြစ်များ [mjiʔ mjà] 'rivers'
Cebuano tubò [ˈtuboʔ] 'to grow'
Chamorro halu'u [həluʔu] 'shark'
Chechen кхоъ / qo' [qoʔ] 'three'
Chinese Cantonese 愛/oi3 [ʔɔːi˧] 'love' See Cantonese phonology.
Wu 一级了 [ʔiɪʔ.tɕiɪʔ.ʔləʔ] 'superb'
Czech používat [poʔuʒiːvat] 'to use' See Czech phonology.
Danish hånd [ˈhɒ̜̽nʔ] '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[10] beamen [bəʔˈaːmə(n)] 'to confirm' See Dutch phonology.
English Received Pronunciation uh-oh [ˈɐʔəʊ] 'uh-oh'
American [ˈʌʔoʊ]
Australian cat [kʰæʔ(t)] 'cat' Allophone of /t/. See glottalization and English phonology.
GA
Estuary [kʰæʔ]
Cockney[11] [kʰɛ̝ʔ]
RP[12] and GA button  [ˈbɐʔn̩]  'button'
Esperanto scii [ˈst͡si.ʔi] 'to know' See Esperanto phonology.
Finnish linja-auto [ˈlinjɑʔˌɑuto] 'bus' See Finnish phonology.
German Northern Beamter [bəˈʔamtɐ] 'civil servant' See German phonology.
Guaraní avañe’ẽ [ãʋ̃ãɲẽˈʔẽ] 'Guaraní' Occurs only between vowels.
Hawaiian[13] ʻeleʻele [ˈʔɛlɛˈʔɛlɛ] 'black' See Hawaiian phonology.
Hebrew מאמר [maʔămaʁ] 'article' See Modern Hebrew phonology.
Icelandic en [ʔɛn] 'but' Only used according to emphasis, never occurring in minimal pairs.
Iloko nalab-ay [nalabˈʔaj] 'bland tasting' Hyphen when occurring within the word.
Indonesian bakso [ˌbäʔˈso] 'meatball' Allophone of /k/ or /ɡ/ in the syllable coda.
JapaneseKagoshima柿[kaʔ]'persimmon'
Javanese[14] anak [änäʔ] 'child' Allophone of /k/ in morpheme-final position.
Kabardian Iэ [ʔa] 'arm/hand'
Kagayanen[15] ? [saˈʔaɡ] 'floor'
Korean 일 [ʔil] 'one' In free variation with no glottal stop. Occurs only in initial position of word.
Malay tidak [ˈtidäʔ] 'no' Allophone of final /k/ in the syllable coda, pronounced before consonants or at end of word.
Maltese qattus [ˈʔattus] 'cat'
Māori Cook Island taʻi [taʔi] 'one'
Nahuatl tahtli [taʔtɬi] 'father' Often left unwritten.
Nez Perce yáakaʔ [ˈjaːkaʔ] 'black bear'
Nheengatu[16] ai [aˈʔi] 'sloth' Transcription (or absence thereof) varies.
Okinawan音[ʔutu]'sound'
Persian معنی [maʔni] 'meaning' See Persian phonology.
Pirahã baíxi [ˈmàí̯ʔì] 'parent'
Portuguese[17] Vernacular Brazilian ê-ê[18] [ˌʔe̞ˈʔeː] ironic 'yeah, right!'[19] Marginal sound. Does not occur after or before a consonant. In Brazilian casual speech, there is at least one [ʔ]–vowel length–pitch accent minimal pair (triply unusual, the ideophones short ih vs. long ih). See Portuguese phonology.
Some speakers à aula [ˈa ˈʔawlɐ] 'to the class'
Rotuman[20] ʻusu [ʔusu] 'to box'
Samoan maʻi [maʔi] 'sickness, illness'
Sardinian
 Some dialects of Barbagia luna [luʔa] 'moon' Intervocalic allophone of /n, k, l/.
Some dialects of Sarrabus
Serbo-Croatian[21] и онда / i onda [iː ʔô̞n̪d̪a̠] 'and then' Optionally inserted between vowels across word boundaries.[21] See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Seri he [ʔɛ] 'I'
Spanish Nicaraguan[22] más alto [ˈma ˈʔal̻t̻o̞] 'higher' Marginal sound or allophone of /s/ between vowels in different words. Does not occur after or before a consonant. See Spanish phonology.
Yucateco[23] cuatro años [ˈkwatɾo̞ ˈʔãɲo̞s] 'four years'
Tagalog iihi [ˌʔiːˈʔiːhɛʔ] 'will urinate' See Tagalog phonology.
Tahitian pua'a [puaʔa] 'pig'
Thai อา [ʔaː] 'uncle'/'aunt' (father's younger sibling)
Tongan tuʻu [tuʔu] 'stand'
Tundra Nenets выʼ [wɨʔ] 'tundra'
Vietnamese[24] oi [ʔɔj˧] 'sultry' In free variation with no glottal stop. See Vietnamese phonology.
Võro piniq [ˈpinʲiʔ] 'dogs' "q" is Võro plural marker (maa, kala, "land", "fish"; maaq, kalaq, "lands", "fishes").
Wagiman jamh [t̠ʲʌmʔ] 'eat'PERF
Welayta [ʔirʈa] 'wet'
Wallisian ma'uli [maʔuli] 'life'

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kortlandt, Frederik (1993). "General Linguistics & Indo-European Reconstruction" (PDF).
  2. ↑ Brown, Gillian. 1977:27. Listening to spoken English. London: Longman.
  3. ↑ Paul Morrow (March 16, 2011). "The basics of Filipino pronunciation: Part 2 of 3 • accent marks". Pilipino Express. Retrieved July 18, 2012.
  4. ↑ Ricardo M.D. Nolasco. Grammar notes on the national language (PDF).
  5. ↑ Joan Schoellner & Beverly D. Heinle, ed. (2007). Tagalog Reading Booklet (PDF). Simon & Schister's Pimsleur. pp. 5–6.
  6. ↑ "Proposal to add LATIN SMALL LETTER GLOTTAL STOP to the UCS" (PDF). 2005-08-10. Retrieved 2011-10-26.
  7. ↑ Browne, Rachel (12 March 2015). "What’s in a name? A Chipewyan’s battle over her native tongue". Maclean's. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
  8. ↑ Thelwall (1990:37)
  9. 1 2 Watson (2002:17)
  10. ↑ Gussenhoven (1992:45)
  11. ↑ Sivertsen (1960:111)
  12. ↑ Roach (2004:240)
  13. ↑ Ladefoged (2005:139)
  14. ↑ Clark, Yallop & Fletcher (2007:105)
  15. ↑ Olson et al. (2010:206–207)
  16. ↑ Fonologia e Gramática do Nheengatu – A língua geral falada pelos povos Baré, Warekena e Baniwa (Portuguese)
  17. ↑ João Veloso & Pedro Tiago Martins (2013). O Arquivo Dialetal do CLUP: disponibilização on-line de um corpus dialetal do português (Portuguese)
  18. ↑ Phonetic symbols for Portuguese phonetic transcription In European Portuguese, the "é é" interjection usually employs an epenthetic /i/, being pronounced [e̞ˈje̞] instead.
  19. ↑ 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!". (Portuguese) How to say 'eu, hein' in English – Adir Ferreira Idiomas
  20. ↑ Blevins (1994:492)
  21. 1 2 Landau et al. (1999:67)
  22. ↑ The hypo-hyperarticulation continuum in Nicaraguan Spanish
  23. ↑ Voiceless stop aspiration in Yucatán Spanish: a sociolinguistic analysis
  24. ↑ Thompson (1959:458–461)

Bibliography

  • Blevins, Juliette (1994), "The Bimoraic Foot in Rotuman Phonology and Morphology", Oceanic Linguistics 33 (2): 491–516, doi:10.2307/3623138, JSTOR 3623138 
  • Clark, John Ellery; Yallop, Colin; Fletcher, Janet (2007), An introduction to Phonetics and Phonology, Wiley-Blackwell 
  • Gussenhoven, Carlos (1992), "Dutch", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (2): 45–47, doi:10.1017/S002510030000459X 
  • Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-21411-9 
  • Landau, Ernestina; Lončarić, Mijo; Horga, Damir; Škarić, Ivo (1999), "Croatian", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 66–69, ISBN 0-521-65236-7 
  • Olson, Kenneth; Mielke, Jeff; Sanicas-Daguman, Josephine; Pebley, Carol Jean; Paterson, Hugh J., III (2010), "The phonetic status of the (inter)dental approximant", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 40 (2): 199–215, doi:10.1017/S0025100309990296 
  • Roach, Peter (2004), "British English: Received Pronunciation", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (2): 239–245, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001768 
  • Schane, Sanford A (1968), French Phonology and Morphology, Boston, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, ISBN 0-262-19040-0 
  • Sivertsen, Eva (1960), Cockney Phonology, Oslo: University of Oslo 
  • Thelwall, Robin (1990), "Illustrations of the IPA: Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20 (2): 37–41, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004266 
  • Thompson, Laurence (1959), "Saigon phonemics", Language 35 (3): 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232 
  • Watson, Janet (2002), The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-824137-2 
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