Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of and other is most often realized as creaky voice (partial closure). Glottalization of obstruent consonants usually involves complete closure of the glottis; another way to describe this phenomenon is to say that a glottal stop is made simultaneously with another consonant. In certain cases, the glottal stop can even wholly replace the voiceless consonant. The term 'glottalized' is also used for ejective and implosive consonants; see glottalic consonant for examples.
There are two other ways to represent glottalization of sonorants in the IPA: (a) the same way as ejectives, with an apostrophe; or (b) with the under-tilde for creaky voice. For example, the Yapese language word for "sick" with a glottalized m could be transcribed as either or . (In some typefaces, the apostrophe will occur above the m.)
Types
Glottalization varies along three parameters, all of which are continuums. The
degree of glottalization varies from none (
modal voice, ) through
stiff voice () and
creaky voice () to full glottal closure (glottal reinforcement or glottal replacement, described below). The
timing also varies, from a simultaneous single segment to an onset or coda such as or to a sequence such as or . Full or partial closure of the glottis also allows glottalic airstream mechanisms to operate, producing ejective or
implosive consonants; implosives may themselves have modal, stiff, or creaky voice. It is not always clear from linguistic descriptions if a language has a series of light ejectives or voiceless consonants with glottal reinforcement,
[See Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996:74) for the case of Siona language] or similarly if it has a series of light implosives or voiced consonants with glottal reinforcement. The airstream parameter is only known to be relevant to obstruents, but the first two are involved with both obstruents and sonorants, including vowels.
Glottal replacement
When a phoneme is completely substituted by a glottal stop , one speaks of glottaling or glottal replacement. This is, for instance, very common in
British English dialects such as
Cockney and
Estuary English dialects. In these dialects, the glottal stop is an allophone of , and word-finally, and when followed by an unstressed vowel (including syllabic and ) in a post-stress syllable. 'Water' can be pronounced – the glottal stop has superseded the 't' sound. Other examples include "city" , "bottle" , "Britain" , "seniority" . In some consonant clusters, glottal replacement of /t/ is common even among RP speakers.
Geordie English has a unique form of glottalization involving glottal reinforcement of t, k, and p, for example in "matter", "lucky", and "happy". T, k, p sounds between vowels are pronounced simultaneously with a glottal stop represented in IPA as p͡ʔ, k͡ʔ and t͡ʔ.
Glottal replacement occurs in Indonesian, where syllable final is produced as a glottal stop. In every Gorontalic language except Buol language and Kaidipang, *k was replaced by a glottal stop, even in word-initial position, except when it followed *ŋ ( *kayu → Gorontalo ayu, *konuku → olu'u).
Glottal replacement is not purely a feature of consonants. Yaneshaʼ has three vowel qualities (, , and ) that have phonemic contrasts between short, long, and "laryngeal" or glottalized forms. While the latter generally consists of creaky voice phonation, there is some allophony involved. In pre-final contexts, a variation occurs (especially before voiced consonants) ranging from creaky phonation throughout the vowel to a sequence of a vowel, glottal stop, and a slightly rearticulated vowel: ('deer') → .
Glottal reinforcement
When a phoneme is accompanied (either sequentially or simultaneously) by a or a , a glottal stop modifier, then one speaks of
pre-glottalization or glottal reinforcement.
English
This is common in some varieties of
English language, RP included; and are the most affected but and also regularly show pre-glottalization. In the English dialects exhibiting pre-glottalization, the consonants in question are usually glottalized in the coda position: "what" , "fiction" , "milkman" , "opera" . To a certain extent, some varieties of English have
free variation between glottal replacement and glottal reinforcement.
Low Saxon
Glottal reinforcement is present in some varieties of
Low Saxon, most notably
Tweants dialect. It usually denotes syllable reduction, and can be heard before plosives: Dat düt et can in its most extreme form be reduced to .
See also
Notes
Bibliography
Glottalization
English accents
Further reading
