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This paper studies onset glottal stop deletion in the speech of Suva Rotumans, Fiji. The speech of 18 speakers was analysed and seven factors were tested to identify their prediction on glottal stop deletion. The linguistic factors tested were preceding sound segment, grammatical class, syllable stress, and style, while the social factors were age, gender, and denominational affiliation. Results reveal a change in progress, but towards glottal stop retention. Younger Rotumans and older Rotuman women are deleting glottal stops less compared to middle-aged women and older men. The low incidence of deletion by younger speakers is most probably due to identity, language education in Rotuman, and their increased awareness of their role in preserving the language. Additionally, older women are deleting glottal stops less, which could be attributed to contact, identity, and their consciousness of the standard.

In two experiments, it was investigated whether potentially contrastive segmental information in the form of an epenthetic glottal stop in Maltese can influence syntactic parsing decisions. The glottal stop in Maltese serves a dual function as a phoneme used for lexical contrast and a non-contrastive phone that may mark a prosodic juncture. In both experiments, participants perceived a larger prosodic boundary before the word u (Engl. “and”) if the u was produced with an epenthetic glottal stop, showing the use of prosodically conditioned segmental information in syntactic parsing. Furthermore, listeners were generally unaware of the existence of the epenthetic glottal stop even though a glottal stop is used as a phoneme represented as a grapheme “q.” They also perceived a larger prosodic juncture when the preceding syllable was lengthened before the word u (“and”). These findings were consistent regardless of whether the glottal stop reinforced a late-closure decision (Experiment 1) or an early-closure decision (Experiment 2). The results indicate that both segmental and suprasegmental information influences syntactic parsing decisions, demonstrating that the syntax–prosody interface is reflected along both the segmental and suprasegmental (duration) dimensions, which are mediated by the phonetics–prosody interface.

This paper analyzes td-deletion, the process whereby coronal stops /t, d/ are deleted after a consonant at the end of the word (e.g., best, kept, missed) in the speech of 93 speakers from Manchester, stratified for age, social class, gender, and ethnicity. Prior studies of British English have not found the morphological effect—more deletion in monomorphemic mist than past tense missed—commonly observed in American English. We find this effect in Manchester and provide evidence that the rise of glottal stop replacement in postsonorant position in British English (e.g., halt, aunt) may be responsible for the reduction in the strength of this effect in British varieties. Glottaling blocks deletion, and, because the vast majority of postsonorant tokens are monomorphemic, the higher rates of monomorpheme glottaling dampens the typical effect of deletion in this context. These findings indicate organization at a higher level of the grammar, while also showing overlaid effects of factors such as style and word frequency.

Glottal stops placed before words starting with a vowel are an integral part of the sound patterns of Czech; however, in Romance languages glottal stops are quite rare and linking to the previous word is much more common. In this study, we examine the extent to which more and less experienced Czech learners of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese (51 in total) use glottal stops or linking in their target language, and compare them with native speakers (29 in total). Analyses of word- and also morpheme-initial contexts reveal that the glottal stop is transferred into the learners’ target language word initially but almost never within words. In line with our hypotheses, the more experienced groups are found to use fewer glottal stops than the less experienced speakers, but still considerably more than the native control groups. We also consider the effect of lexical stress, segmental context and semantic status of the respective words on glottalization. Methodological implications for the teaching of Romance languages in the Czech context are also discussed.

Miri, an Austronesian language spoken in northern Sarawak, Malaysia, has two sets of vowel changes that are conditioned by voiced obstruents. In the first set, a last-syllable low vowel is fronted and raised to [e], or less commonly [i], if a voiced obstruent appears earlier in the word, while a penultimate low vowel immediately following the trigger is skipped. In the second, a high vowel in the final syllable undergoes breaking (diphthongisation) or lowering, depending upon specific conditions, unless there is a voiced obstruent anywhere earlier in the word. For both triggers and suppressors, this effect is cancelled by an intervening blocking consonant, which includes any nasal or voiceless obstruent except glottal stop. The challenge is to understand why voiced obstruents have this double function, acting as a trigger with low vowels and a suppressor with high vowels, given the lack of an a priori transparent relationship between low vowel fronting and high vowel breaking/lowering.

In American English, a glottal stop is sometimes pronounced in place of an expected syllable coda /t/, and audible glottalization is attested before both /t/ and /p/ in coda position. Following previous work, we claim that the voiceless stops in American English involve a glottal constriction gesture to produce voicelessness in coda position, which contrasts with the glottal spreading gesture used in onset position. If the oral stop closure is not audibly produced, or if the oral and glottal gestures are not aligned, the resulting articulation may be perceived as a glottal stop or as pre-glottalized. This study explores the pre-consonantal phonological environments where coda glottal stops occur in a large corpus of American English speech from central Ohio. Coda /t/ glottalization is found near-categorically before sonorants, often phrase-medially before labial and velar obstruents, often phrase-finally, and occasionally elsewhere. We argue that most of this distribution can be explained by phonetic conditions which either favor reduction of the oral closure, or else reinforce the irregular voicing associated with the glottal constriction gesture. However, the near-categorical rate of glottalization before sonorants, as well as somewhat higher rates for younger and female speakers, may not have a plausible coarticulatory source: These suggest that the process is also phonologically planned under some circumstances.

En el marco de los debates abiertos sobre la distribución de la oclusiva glotal, su estatus fonológico y realización en superficie, así como la glotalización en lenguas amerindias, este trabajo hace foco en la familia mataguaya hablada en el Gran Chaco, Sudamérica. Desde una perspectiva filogenética, se defiende la hipótesis de una serie eyectiva en el proto-mataguayo, y se postulan argumentos para la reconstrucción de *ʔ como proto-fonema, entre los cuales se encuentra el desarrollo de las sonorantes glotalizadas (consonantes y vocales). Se especula que la emergencia de las consonantes y vocales glotalizadas se dio internamente a las lenguas y, presumiblemente, en períodos distintos en cada caso. En línea con algunas propuestas teóricas, y en función del carácter del comportamiento de la oclusiva glotal y de los fenómenos de glotalización en esta familia asumimos que el análisis de la oclusiva glotal como un segmento es adecuado para las lenguas mataguayas. Within the framework of the current debate on the distribution of the glottal stop, its phonological status and surface realization, as well as the glottalization phenomena in Amerindian languages, this paper focuses on the Mataguayan language family spoken in the Gran Chaco, South America. From a phylogenetic perspective, the hypothesis of an ejective series in the Proto-Mataguayan is supported. Also, a number of arguments are postulated for the reconstruction of /*ʔ/ as a proto-phoneme, among which is the development of glottalized sonorants (consonants and vowels). It is speculated that the emergence of glottalized consonants and vowels occurred internally to languages and, presumably, at different stages in each case. In line with some theoretical proposals, and based on the glottal stop behavior and glottalization phenomena in this language family, we propose that the analysis of the glottal stop as a segment is adequate for the Mataguayan languages. Fil: Gutiérrez, Analía. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Centro Argentino de Información Científica y Tecnológica; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentina Fil: Nercesian, Verónica. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Centro Argentino de Información Científica y Tecnológica; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentina

Predictability has been shown to be associated with many dimensions of variation in speech, including durational variation and variable omission of segments. However, the mechanism or mechanisms that underlie these effects are still unclear. This paper presents data on a new aspect of predictability in speech, namely how it affects allophonic variation. We examine two coronal stop allophones in English, flap and glottal stop, and find that their relationship with predictability is quite different from what is expected under current theories of probabilistic reduction in speech. Flapping is more likely when the word that follows is more predictable, but is not influenced by the frequency of the word itself, while glottal stops are more likely in words that are less predictable. We propose that the crucial distinction between these two allophones is how they are conditioned by phonological context. This, we argue, interacts with online speech planning processes and gives rise to variability for context-dependent allophones. This hypothesis offers a specific, testable mechanism for certain predictability effects, and has the potential to extend to other factors that contribute to variability in speech.

In many varieties of African American English (AAE), glottal stop replacement and deletion of word-final /t/ and /d/ results in consonant neutralization, while the underlying voicing distinction may be maintained by other cues, such as vowel duration. Here, I examine the relationship between vowel duration, final glottal stop replacement, and deletion of word-final /t, d/ to determine whether the phonological contrast of consonant voicing is maintained through duration of the preceding vowel. Data come from conversational interviews of AAE speakers in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington, DC. Results indicate that glottalization and deletion of word-final /t/ and /d/ are widespread across the speakers in the analysis. Additionally, the duration of vowels is significantly longer before underlying /d/ than /t/ for consonant neutralized contexts, thus showing that duration, normally a secondary cue to final voicing, may be becoming a primary cue in AAE.

Much of the literature on the phonetic realization of phonemic or allophonic glottal stop has shown that it is often not produced with full glottal closure. Some studies of languages like English or German suggest that full glottal closure might be more likely in stressed syllables or positions of prosodic prominence (Garellek, 2014; Kohler, 1994), but the conditioning factors in the realization of contrastive glottal stop are less well understood. This study focuses on Hawaiian, which has phonemic glottal stop that is contrastive in both word-initial (/ʔaka/ ‘laugh’ vs. /aka/ ‘shadow’) and word-medial position (/pua/ ‘flower’ vs. /puʔa/ ‘to excrete’) (Parker Jones, 2018). Glottal stop realization is examined with respect to three factors: word position, different vs. identical flanking vowel (/puʔa/ ‘to excrete’ vs. /puʔu/ ‘hill’), and duration of the target /V(#)ʔV/ sequence. Recordings from the Ka Leo Hawaiʻi Hawaiian language radio program that aired from 1972 to 1988 were examined. Results show that the majority of phonemic glottal stops are produced as a period of creaky voice, most often in a modal voice-creaky voice-modal voice configuration, but also as modal-creaky or creaky-modal. Full glottal stops were more likely in word-initial position, and identical flanking vowels led to longer periods of creaky voice. Shorter target intervals led to longer proportions of creaky voice. These findings for phonemic glottal stop are consistent with research on the timing of contrastive voice quality in vowels, which has shown that modal-nonmodal-modal patterns are preferred to ensure that vowel quality, voice quality, and tone (for languages with all three) are recoverable (Silverman, 1995/1997). The effects of word position and flanking vowel are also related to recoverability and segmentation. The potential articulatory configurations common to glottal stops and creaky voice which may explain why they are on a continuum are also discussed.

Breathy phonation refers to the laryngeal setting where the vocal folds are less tense and make less contact than in “modal” phonation, which consequently leads to continuous leaking of voiceless airflow, giving rise to the perception of breathiness in a speech sound. In Austronesian languages, contrastive breathy segments are very rare. For the Austronesian languages of Island Southeast Asia, only one language has been reported to have phonemically breathy vowels: Kedang, a language spoken on Lembata island, in eastern Indonesia. In this paper, we revisit the earlier analysis that in Kedang, breathiness distinguishes phonemic “breathy” from “modal” vowels. Presenting evidence of distributional, acoustic, and etymological nature, we argue that the so-called breathy onsetless vowels do not appear to be similar to breathy vowels described in the literature. Their “breathy” nature may have a historical source in initial glottal consonants that were lost, but is currently used as a phonetic strategy that is intended to enhance the perceptual contrast between syllables with a phonemic glottal onset versus onsetless syllables. We also suggest that the glottal stop in Kedang is phonemic in all positions and indicatea possible historical trajectory for its development.

This paper traces the employment of original Phoenician-Punic guttural graphemes, , , , and , to represent vowel phonemes in later Punic. Three typologically distinct treatments are identified: (1) morphographic, where the grapheme indicates the etymological glottal stop /ˀ/ (its original function) as well as vowel morphemes without specifying their phonological character; (2) morpho-phonographic, where guttural graphemes continue to indicate etymological guttural consonants, but now both the presence of a vowel morpheme and (potentially) the vowel quality of that morpheme; and (3) phonographic, where the same set of guttural graphemes serve to denote vowel phonemes only, and do not any longer indicate guttural consonants. The threefold division is argued for on the basis of the Late Punic language written in Punic and Neopunic scripts. Despite the availability of dedicated vowel graphemes, these are not obligatorily written in any period of written Punic. It is suggested that a typologically significant path of development may be observed across these three uses of guttural graphemes, with (3) the endpoint of a development from morphography to phonography.

This article analyses the distribution of hiatus breakers [j w ɦ ʔ] in Karanga, a dialect of Shona, a Bantu language spoken in Zimbabwe. Hiatus resolution through consonant epenthesis is frequently described and analysed as default insertion or spreading. In default insertion, all the featural material of the epenthetic segment is inserted whereas in spreading the input segments supply all the features. There is an implicit assumption that spreading is a preserve of the oral glides [j w]. This article argues that all the Shona hiatus breakers ([j w ɦ ʔ]) are products of spreading. The glide [j] is a product of [coronal] spreading from [i] and [w] is a product of [labial] spreading from either [o] or [u]. The glottal stop [ʔ] and glottal fricative [ɦ] are products of [pharyngeal] spreading from [a] with concomitant insertion of the feature [constricted glottis] for [ʔ], and spreading of [spread glottis] via [a] for [ɦ].

This study explores the glottalization of Taiwan Min checked tones 3 and 5 with a CV [ptkʔ] syllable structure. Electroglottography (EGG) supplements acoustic data on disyllabic words with checked tones collected from 40 speakers from five dialect regions. The results indicated that a final coda can be realized as a full oral/glottal stop closure, an energy dip at vowel's end, an aperiodic voicing at vowel's end, or a coda deletion. Over 80% of /ʔ/ codas and less than 20% of /ptk/ codas were deleted. The undeleted /ptk/ codas were more likely to be produced with a full stop closure among tone 3 and sandhi tones. Glottal contact quotient (CQ_H) distinguished tones 3 and 5 from unchecked tones 31 and 51, respectively. In sandhi positions, the vowels of tone [5] /3/ were produced with a longer CQ_H, lower H1*-A3* and a higher Cepstral Peak Prominence (CPP), suggesting a longer close phase, a more abrupt glottal closure and more periodic voicing than tone [3] /5/. In juncture position, coda deletion and the merging of H1*-A1*, H1*-A3* and A1*-A2* of tones [3] /3/ and [5] /5/ suggest a sound change among checked tones.

The realisation of /t/ as a glottal stop [?] is a phenomenon described as occurring in word medial or final position (Docherty, 2010; Fabricius, 2002; Przedlacka, 2002; Roach, 1973). In English, sociolinguistic studies and phonological corpora (Schleef, 2013; Tagliamonte & Temple, 2005) have tried to frame and predict the context of glottal stops, since it is perceived as a phenomenon of change which is an index of membership to the Cockney or Estuary English, different from the variety of London. We explored a set of tokens containing glottalisation of the alveolar stop segment /t/ from a recorded corpus of naturally occurring data (British reality TV show The Only Way is Essex) in order to predict instances of glottal replacement. Main findings suggest that both onset or coda position are insufficient variables to determine the occurrence of [?], but stress does allow a better calculation for contexts of glottalisation replacement. The present analysis expands prior findings in the literature by involving syllabic boundaries and stress to determine the maintenance of the alveolar feature in all studied samples, as well as to support former predictions that glottalised /t/ emerges in syllable final or intervocalic contexts relying on pure articulatory grounds. (University of Delaware)

It has been claimed that learning to read changes the way we perceive speech, with detrimental effects for words with sound–spelling inconsistencies. Because conversational speech is peppered with segment deletions and alterations that lead to sound–spelling inconsistencies, such an influence would seriously hinder the perception of conversational speech. We hence tested whether the orthographic coding of a segment influences its deletion costs in perception. German glottal stop, a segment that is canonically present but not orthographically coded, allows such a test. The effects of glottal-stop deletion in German were compared to deletion of /h/ in German (grapheme: h) and deletion of glottal stop in Maltese (grapheme: q) in an implicit task with conversational speech and explicit task with careful speech. All segment deletions led to similar reduction costs in the implicit task, while an orthographic effect, with larger effects for orthographically coded segments, emerged in the explicit task. These results suggest that learning to read does not influence how we process speech but mainly how we think about it.

Natural classes are typically defined by some shared phonetic property, though the segments within such a class may differ substantially along other dimensions. This paper explores two such classes in Quechua: the class of [spread glottis] segments, aspirates and [h], and the class of [constricted glottis] segments, ejectives and [ʔ]. While aspirates and ejectives pattern with their glottal counterparts in the cooccurrence phonotactics of the language, nonce word tasks only find weak evidence of these natural classes. Instead, there is evidence for strong phonotactic restrictions on aspirates and ejectives to the exclusion of their glottal counterparts. It is proposed that the preference for classes of laryngeally marked stops is phonetically based, deriving from the salience of the phonetic properties unique to stops.

This study examined the emergence of the phonetic variants (often called allophones) of alveolar phonemes in the speech production of 2-year-olds. Our specific question was: Does the child start by producing a “canonical” form of a phoneme (e.g., /t/ with a clear closure and a release burst), only later learning to produce its other phonetic variants (e.g., unreleased stop, flap, and glottal stop)? Or, does the child start by producing the appropriate phonetic variants in the appropriate contexts and only later learn that they are phonetic variants of the same phoneme? In order to address this question, we investigated the production of three phonetic variants (unreleased stop, flap, and glottal stop) of the alveolar stop codas /t, d/ in the spontaneous speech of 6 American-English-speaking mother–child dyads, using both acoustic and perceptual coding. The results showed that 2-year-old children produced all three variants significantly less often than their mothers, and produced acoustic cues to canonical /t, d/ more often. This supports the view that young children start out by producing a fully articulated canonical variant of a phoneme in contexts where an adult would produce non-canonical forms. The implications of these findings for early phonological representations are discussed.

Summary This paper reassesses the sound value of the Meroitic sign traditionally defined as ‘initial a’. This sign is termed ‘initial a’ due to its non-occurrence anywhere other than word-initially in the Meroitic script. A re-evaluation of the evidence for its representation indicates that this sign should be considered as a syllable sign comprised of a glottal stop and the inherent unmarked ‘a’ vowel. Therefore, this sign is likely to be representative of a CV sign, which was one of Griffith’s (1916) proposals, rather than a sign representing only a vowel of varying quality *V, as is currently assumed. As previous proposals for the sound value of this sign have heavily relied on Egyptian transcriptions, this paper reviews the discussions on the Egyptian transcriptions along with the relevant Egyptian phonemic values, and includes a proposal for a sound change process which contributes to the possible revision for the value of this sign.

Recent metrical studies have proposed that, under certain circumstances, a weak syllable may be adjoined to a binary foot, giving rise to a minimally recursive foot. Adding to a growing body of research from metrical stress and foot-conditioned phenomena in various languages, the goals of this paper are twofold. First, we aim at providing empirical evidence for internally layered feet based on the distribution of three foot-conditioned processes of Dutch: vowel reduction, glottal stop /ʔ/ insertion and /h/ licensing/deletion. Second, we explore a less studied theoretical and descriptive advantage of internally layered feet: their potential to predict phonological strength distinctions that go beyond the traditional weak vs. strong dichotomy. In support of this view, we will argue that all three above-mentioned foot-based processes of Dutch distinguish between two types of unstressed syllables. We will demonstrate that the metrical representation that best captures this dual patterning of unstressed syllables necessitates internally layered feet.

Pronunciation guides for German frequently state that glottal stops must be inserted before word-initial vowels. This paper reports on a study of naturally occurring German talk in which the phonetic properties of word-initial vowels were investigated. The focus was on the beginning of new turn-constructional units by the same speaker, which was hypothesized to be a default location for glottal stop insertion. The data show that 42% of vowel-fronted TCUs do not show glottal stop insertion; instead vowels are joined directly to the final sound of previous TCUs. In contrast to previous research, speakers’ regional variety seems to play no role in the distribution of word-initial glottal stops at TCU boundaries, as a glottalization/linking distribution of roughly 60/40 is relatively consistent across speakers and conversations. The main factor affecting the contrast between glottalization and linking seems to be the management of conversational actions. Speakers make use of glottalization of TCU-initial vowels in their design of next TCUs as new actions; whereas vowel linking contributes to the design of continuing actions-in-progress. In a small number of cases, participants use linking to integrate new, socially dispreferred actions into preferred actions. The findings do not support an earlier pilot study of broadcast interaction.

It has generally been assumed that after nonlow vowels in English, hiatus is resolved by inserting a homorganic glide (e.g. seeing [sijɪŋ], Ito & Mester 2009). However, despite suspicions that inserted glides may be fundamentally different from lexical glides (e.g. Cruttenden 2008), a systematic phonetic investigation of the purported glide is lacking. We examine the nature of hiatus resolution by comparing three environments: (i) vowel-vowel sequences within words (VV: kiosk ), (ii) vowel-vowel sequences across word boundaries (VBV: see otters ), and (iii) vowel-glide-vowel sequences across word boundaries (VGV: see yachts ). The first finding is that a glottal stop produced between the vowels accounts for nearly half of the responses for VBV phrases, whereas glottal stops are present in less than 5% of the VV and the VGV conditions. Second, an acoustic comparison of VV, VBV, and VGV phrases not produced with glottal stops shows significant differences between the vowel-glide-vowel and the vowel-vowel sequences on all measures, including duration, intensity, and formants. These results indicate that American English speakers tend to resolve hiatus at word boundaries with glottal stop insertion, whereas there is no hiatus resolution at all within words. A brief optimality-theoretic analysis sketches out the phonological differences between hiatus at word boundaries and word-medially.

I present an analysis of prevocalic initial glottal stops in Amarasi. A range of morphological and phonological evidence shows that a unitary analysis of such glottal stops is not possible: some morphemes occur with an epenthetic initial glottal stop, while other morphemes occur with a contrastive initial glottal stop. This is consistent with the historical data, which show that some glottal stops have developed from an earlier consonant while others are historic insertions. Despite the difference between epenthetic and contrastive glottal stops in Amarasi, there are only a few instances in which the data are unambiguous. In most cases, the status of a particular glottal stop has not yet been determined.

The study investigates the impact of gl ottal elements before word -initial vowels on the speed of processing of the phrases taken from natural continuous speech. In many languages a word beginning with a vowel can be preceded by a glottal stop or a short period of creaky voice . However, language s differ in the extent of use and functions of this glottalization : it may be used to mark the word boundary , for instance, or to add special prominence to the word. The aim of the experiment was to find out whether the presence of the glottal element can influence reaction times in a word -monitoring paradigm. Users of different languages ± Slovak and Czech learners of English, as well as native speakers of English ± were participating in perception testing so that the influence of the mother tongue could b e determined. The results confirm the effect of both glottalization and the L1 of the listeners. In addition, a significant effect of test item manipulations was found . Although the phrases with added or deleted glottal stops displayed no obvious acoustic artefacts, they produced longer reaction times than items with naturally present or absent glottalizations. We believe that this finding underlines the importance of inherent stress patterns, whose alterations lead to the increase in processing load.

Definite article reduction (DAR) is a dialectal variable confined to the North of England. In DAR dialects, the standard article alternates with a reduced one, which is mostly realised as a glottal stop and sometimes as a voiceless fricative before vowels. DAR is a salient sociolinguistic marker in the sense of Labov (1972) and Trudgill (1986). This article argues that its salience is derived from its status as a good boundary marker that listeners can utilise in order to segment the speech stream.Salience is the property of a variable which makes it cognitively or perceptually prominent both for speakers of the dialect and for speakers of other dialects. DAR is a salient marker inasmuch as it shows variation and style shifting, can be an identity marker, and has long been recognised by layperson and linguist alike as a typical feature of Northern speech.It will be argued that DAR is salient since it is a good word-boundary marker. The reduced article constitutes domains of low transitional probability, which listeners exploit to segment the speech signal. It has been recognised that word segmentation plays a major role in speech processing and that listeners use statistical inferences (besides other kinds of information) to locate word boundaries. The conclusion is that the salience of DAR can be derived from its distributions, as these distributions result in the variable's perceptual prominence.

This comparative study, conducted in multicultural London, investigates the occurrence in interviews with a researcher and in constructed same-sex peer conversations of five linguistic features characteristic of London English in the speech of two groups of British-born adolescents: ethnic Bangladeshis and ethnic Chinese of Cantonese heritage. The features are glottal stop in place of medial /t/, high rising tone in declaratives, invariant tag innit, quotative be like, and negative concord. Based on relative frequency of occurrence, the two groups have comparable performance on two of these features, showing no instances of medial glottal stop and similarly moderate incidence of innit. On the other three features, the performance of the two groups contrasts. For the Bangladeshi group, the highest frequency item is negative concord, and the other two (high rising tone and quotative be like) have low occurrence. For the Chinese group, the highest frequency item is high rising tone, the frequency of be like ...

In word-final, prevocalic position (e.g., it is) there are various possible phonetic realizations of /t/ in American English (e.g., [t], [ʕ], [ʔ]). The present study examines the linguistic and social factors associated with the use of the glottal stop in American English in 1,101 instances of word-final, prevocalic /t/ from the Santa Barbara Corpus. The glottal stop occurred in 24% of the cases. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors that favor glottaling of /t/. our findings concur with previous research in that age and region were significant: Westerners in their teens and 20s glottalized more than non-Westerners in the same age groups; speakers who are 30 and older, both Westerners and non-Westerners, glottalize to a much smaller degree. We also found that glottaling is favored by a following stressed syllable; however, gender and following vowel quality were not influencing variables, which contradicts previous experimental findings. If prevocalic glottaling is uncommon word-internally in American English, why is it apparently spreading word-finally? We provide evidence that word-final /t/s are more often followed by word-initial consonants than vowels, which places them in a glottalizing context. Instances with a glottal realization are stored in the mental lexicon and are available as possible pronunciation choices even in prevocalic position.

In word-final prevocalic position (e.g., right ankle), there are various possible phonetic realizations of /t/ in American English: [t], [], []. The present study focuses on the linguistic and social factors associated with the use of the glottal stop. Data were gathered by having participants repeat sentences they were presented auditorily (e.g., She twisted her right ankle). The particular pronunciation of /t/ in the presented sentences was masked with a tone. Logistic regression analysis identified three significant factors: (1) glottal stops were favored by following front vowels; (2) younger female speakers were most likely to use glottal stops, which may indicate a change in progress; and (3) speakers from the Western United States glottalized more than speakers from other parts of the country.

High Tone (excluding atonic superhigh accent) in Oklahoma Cherokee can be divided into three types: (i ) Lexical High Tone, (ii ) High Tone imposed on the final vowel of the verb stem, and (iii ) High Tone caused by prepronominal prefixes. This claim is supported by their different behaviors with regard to the direction of tone spreading, tone‐bearing unit, atonic forms, and blocking of the Laryngeal Alternation rule. I also claim that among these three High Tones, Lexical High Tone, which has been considered to be lexically determined and not predictable, is in fact derived from an underlying glottal stop, which has been considered to trigger only Lowfall (or falling) Tone.

The aim of this study is to enhance the documentation of laryngeal segments in Capanahua and to contribute to studies of the interaction between prosodic structure and segments. Laryngeal segments in Capanahua show a number of positional effects. They can only surface within morpheme‐initial syllables. This study shows that within that position, the distinction between head and nonhead syllables plays a major role in governing the alternations shown by glottal stops. Coda glottal stops can only surface in head‐syllables since they inhibit glottal coalescence, a process triggered elsewhere. In contrast, in nonhead syllables, glottal stops fuse with the preceding vowel, resulting in glottalized vowels. The underlying representations of morphemes can only contain one glottal feature; that is, either [constricted glottis] or [spread glottis] but not both. However, in Capanahua, this restriction does not hold at the level of phonetic representation since glottal stops and glottal fricatives co‐occur when the g...

Glottal stops are conveyed by an abrupt constriction at the level of the glottis. Tracheoesophageal (TE) speakers are known to have poor control over the new voice source (neoglottis), and this might influence the production of 'glottal' stops. This study investigated how TE speakers realized 'glottal' stops in abutting words that end and begin with the same vowel. Ten phoneticians rated seven TE speakers' attempts to convey 'glottal' stops less favourably than two laryngeal control speakers' 'glottal' stops. Acoustic analyses showed that TE speakers relied on more gradual changes, but in 25% of realizations, a constriction at the neoglottis, similar to the constriction found in normal speakers, was produced. It was concluded that control over the neoglottis might be greater than is generally assumed. It might be possible to improve TE speakers' awareness and control over the neoglottis through training, using such tools as digital high-speed imaging.

Phonetic variability refers to the variability with which we speak. This variability may be a function of socio-linguistic factors such as dialect, for example the intervocalic /t/ in city is often pronounced as flap [R] in Canadian English but as glottal stop [P] in British English. It may also be a function of linguistic factors. For example in Canadian English, the pronunciation of /t/ is a function of prosodic environment: it is aspirated [t] in top, flapped [R] in city and glottalised [t ∼ P] in nightlife. In Quebecois French, /t/ varies as a function of segmental environment: it is affricated [t] preceding high front vowels /i/ and /y/, as in [ty] tu ‘you sg.’ but unaffricated elsewhere, as in [to] tot ‘early’. Finally, a certain amount of variability is intrinsic to speech, and results from the fact that our articulatory mechanisms are not characterized by robotic levels of precision. Phonetic variability has recently become the focus of much research because of its implications for how sound structure is represented in a language’s grammar. Generative models of phonology represent speech sounds lexically as single, abstract, invariant underlying forms. For example, [t] [R], and [P] in the English

This article presents an argument for the idea that consonants of high sonority are preferred over low-sonority consonants between vowels (Uffmann 2007). The argument is based on a detailed description and analysis of the phonological patterns which ensure that a syllable starts with a consonant in Washo. Washo inserts [j], which is of high sonority, between any two vowels. Word-initially however a glottal stop is inserted. It is argued that the Washo insertion patterns show influence of the sonority requirements, and these patterns are not subject to an analysis in terms of autosegmental spreading. Thus although feature spreading is a useful tool for capturing similarity requirements on neighboring segments, it is not sufficient to account for cases like Washo epenthesis.

This paper investigates the phonological status of the glottal stop that occurs in root morphemes in Wanano and in other Eastern Tukanoan (ET) languages spoken in the Vaupes region of Brazil and Colombia (Piratapuyo, Tukano, Desano, and Siriano). Roots in these languages are lexically marked for the suprasegmental features of nasalization and tone, features I describe, analyze, and contrast with what I propose to be a third suprasegmental feature of roots: glottalization. The glottal stops that occur regularly in a subset of roots have been alternately analyzed in the ET literature as a secondary feature of vowels, as a full consonant segment, or as an articulatory phenomenon linked to tone. I review these analyses and contrast them with a presentation of glottalization as a third, independent suprasegmental feature of roots. I argue that the suprasegmental approach is applicable to a wider range of data and therefore demonstrates clear explanatory advantages over previous analyses.

The articulatory mechanisms involved in the production of glottal stop, glottalized resonants, and pharyngeals are examined laryngoscopically in the Wakashan language, Nuuchahnulth (Ahousaht dialect). Early linguistic descriptions and historical definitions suggested that a glottal stop is a component of the glottalized resonant series and perhaps of the pharyngeal /ʕ/; however, it has been unclear where and to what degree an occlusion can be found in the production of these sounds. To address the theoretical issue of the phonetic relationship between glottal, pharyngeal, and epiglottal articulations, we use the sounds of Nuuchahnulth and of other languages we have observed in formulating a revised theory of cardinal categories of pharyngeal and laryngeal articulations. We present direct visual evidence that the initial voiced glottalized resonant consonants of Nuuchahnulth are a product of the addition of a moderate glottal stop occurring before the resonant and that the pharyngeal /ʕ/ contains a voiceless epiglottal stop followed by a voiced pharyngeal approximant. Our evidence suggests that pharyngeals /ʕ/ and /ħ/ are not only lingually retracted but are primarily a function of an aryepiglottic laryngeal constriction mechanism. Measurements of the duration of articulatory events confirm that glottalized resonants are almost twice the length of nonglottalized segments. We also find that the pharyngeals /ʕ/ and /ħ/ involve an even longer articulatory sequence than glottalized consonants, most likely as a function of the greater distance which the articulators have to travel. These findings imply a revised interpretation of the relationship of glottals to pharyngeals in articulatory theory, including the conceptualization of how constriction occurs in the larynx and in the pharynx and the rank ordering of strictures proposed within taxonomic theory.

Dempwolff's reconstructiion of *wayeR 'water' is reviewed. The meaning 'fresh water' is suggested. The initial *w may have been dialectally distributed with a probably older *kw. Chamorro's treatment of *w is formulated and its relevance to the evidence for *kw is challenged. The articulation of *R may have not been a velar spirant in all PAN dialects in view of the agreement of Bonfia, Palauan, and Yapese on sibilance. In some dialects there may have been a paragogic vowel after the *R and that vowel itself may have been followed by a glottal stop. Finally, evidence for a medial *S has been found.

This article argues against Burzio's (2001) reanalysis of Rubach's (2000b) glide and glottal stop insertion in the Slavic languages. It is shown that the reanalysis cannot account for the range of attested facts and that it leads to unwarranted extensions of Optimality Theory by relying on unrestricted targeted constraints. The conclusion is that Optimality Theory must admit derivational levels.

The spread of the glottal stop as a variant of /t/ in British English has been well documented in the recent literature (Macafee 1994; Macaulay and Trevelyan 1973; Stuart-Smith 1999; Kerswill and Williams 2000; Fabricius 2002). The origins of this feature are not easy to pinpoint, and some theories (Macafee 1997, for example) even point to Glasgow, though not without controversy. It is, nevertheless, spreading rapidly throughout Scotland in predictable patterns along the lines of social class, age and sex (Macaulay 1991; Stuart-Smith 1999; Romaine 1982). This paper presents some of the findings from a recent study of pronunciation changes in rural Aberdeenshire (north-east Scotland). The data confirm the spread of the glottal stop in this area in apparent time. In addition to this, there is an interesting pattern visible. While all of the other phonetic variables in this study show remarkable similarity of patterning across age, the glottal stop shows a different distribution. I argue that the reason for this has to do with its status as an incoming variant which is not a Scottish Standard English form, and that the groups which resist it and those which adopt it are predictable from the results of sociolinguistic research elsewhere in Britain.

Although it has generally been assumed that Namakir is the only Vanuatu language that has a phonemic reflex of Proto-Oceanic *q, recent data collected from a number of languages in north-central Malakula show that *q is also reflected there, though it is lost in quite a number of words. Of interest is the fact that, in noninitial position, *q merges with *k, usually as x; but in initial position, *q is reflected as i, probably via intermediate y. We argue that these cases of initial i are not prothetic but constitute "real" reflexes of *q, and we attempt to explain the phonetics of the *q > i change. In doing so, we suggest that these data provide further evidence that *q was probably a uvular and not a glottal stop.

Hajek and Bowden (Oceanic Linguistics 41:222-224) report on the unusual ejective series in Waimoa, an Austronesian language of East Timor. I argue that, while phonetically odd, it is not a phonological oddity to find ejectives in an Austronesian language, especially not one in the Timor region. A possible historical pathway for the genesis of the ejectives is proposed, and some questions arc raised about the acoustic nature of ejectives and about their phonological representation. Hajek and Bowden (2002) report the "typologically unusual" ejectives of Waimoa. While not disputing the facts in this language (I have only spent a total of about four hours in what was then East Timor), I would like to raise some questions about the unusualness. Why do we suppose that ejectives are phonologically unusual in Austronesian languages? It is true that ejectives are vanishingly rare segments to find reported in the phonetic inventory of an Austronesian language. But is their appearance phonologically unexpected? I would argue that it is not. There are three salient points to my argument: (I) what is the nature of these ejectives, (2) where do these ejectives "fit" in the phonological system of the language, and (3) are there analogues of "ejectives" in other Austronesian languages? I examine these points in the following sections, and conclude that, phonologically speaking, the appearance of ejectives in Waimoa is neither unexpected nor an oddity. "Ejectives." What are the ejectives in Waimoa? An ejective is a voiceless stop that, during the oral closure, exhibits a closed glottis followed by raising the larynx, which serves to increase air pressure in the oral cavity, so that at the time of release of the oral closure there is some extra ... what? There must, logically, be more turbulence following an ejective than a "normal" stop, just as there is more turbulence following an aspirated stop than following an unaspirated stop. But how do we perceive the difference between the turbulence that accompanies an ejective and the turbulence that accompanies aspiration? Aspiration we can understand, running as it does on the VOT parameter, but ejectives are a different beast. I don't dispute their existence, and their distinctive qualities (the ones I have heard have been in Wakashan languages, and they were most memorable), but they seem to be more of a coarticulation than a distinct series. Are any languages reported with, for instance, a consonant like [kp '], which in my hypothesis would involve triple coarticulation, and so be disallowed? Phonotactics. Where, judging from the notes in Hajek and Bowden, do these ejectives appear? On the initial segment of putative verbs: the forms that they cite with ejectives are mainly verbal, and they note that they do not occur in clusters, where other consonants (all other consonants?) are able to appear. In other languages of the area, consonantal clusters are restricted to initial position (see, for instance, the excellent description of Tetum in van Klinken 1999, where she describes the initial k that is the only consonant permitted in clusters [and then only initially] as an extrametrical consonant). Now, given a *k> ? sound change, not uncommon in the area,(1) we would then have a series of clusters with glottal stops as their first elements. A glottal stop may be readily realized in the environment #__C if C is a sonorant, but not so readily if C is a stop. In just this environment we would almost expect the laryngeal gesture to be realized in effect as a coarticulation of the C. k-C[right arrow]?-C[right arrow]?C[right arrow][C.sup.?]orC' It is not clear to me just what the difference is, phonetically, between [C.sup.?] and C'; I know that, definitionally, there is a greater oral air pressure in the case of the C', but I am not yet aware what this means phonetically (this is fertile ground for future reporting). Most importantly, I do not believe that [C. …

The languages of northern Sarawak are noteworthy for their unusual phonological histories. Even among these, Kiput is exceptional. All North Sarawak languages reflect a split of the Proto-Austronesian voiced obstruents into a series of plain voiced obstruents and a parallel series of phonemic voiced aspirates, and most of the same languages have fronted low vowels after a voiced obstruent, or have developed systems of verbal ablaut from the infixes *-um- and *-in-. On top of these widely shared innovations Kiput shows diachronic evidence for such atypical changes as intervocalic devoicing, lowering of diphthongal nuclei unless a voiced obstruent occurs earlier in the word, *f> s, and possibly postnasal devoicing, as well as synchronic evidence for the spontaneous nasalization of nonlow vowels before final p, t, k (but not glottal stop), constraints on morale structure conditioned by syllable onset, and the alternation of b with s. Although some languages may have undergone more sound changes, or may have m ore radically transformed the shapes of protoforms through heavy phonological erosion, with the possible exception of the Berawan dialects of northern Sarawak the concentration of bizarre sound changes seen in Kiput probably is unrivalled among the more than 1,000 members of the Austronesian language family. ********** 1. BACKGROUND. Kiput is a member of the Berawan-Lower Baram branch of the North Sarawak subgroup of Austronesian (AN) languages, spoken by perhaps 450 people. The entire language community reportedly resides in a single long-house known variously as Long Kiput, Long Tutoh, or Kuala Tutoh, located on the main branch of the Baram River about one kilometer from its junction with the Tutoh in Sarawak's Fourth Division. The nearest major settlements are the Kenyah longhouse of Long Ikang further up the Baram, and the more recent Than settlement of Belahui, some distance up the Tutoh, which probably was established sometime early in the twentieth century. The closest linguistic relatives of Kiput appear to be Belait, spoken in Brunei; Narum; Dali'; and Miri, spoken in the basin of the Baram River and adjacent littoral of Sarawak; and the languages described by Ray (r913) as Lemeting and Lelak, which may now be extinct. Somewhat more distantly related are the Berawan dialects of Long Terawan (perhaps a distinct lang uage), Long Tern, Barn Belah, and Long Jegan; more distant still are the Kelabitic languages, which apparently share a common node with Berawan-Lower Baram below the node that dominates North Sarawak as a whole. (I) Like other members of the North Sarawak group, Kiput has a complex and in many ways surprising historical phonology. Some aspects of the historical phonology of Kiput have been discussed in passing elsewhere (Blust 1969, 1974a, 1997a, 2000), but no comprehensive account of the changes in this language has yet appeared in print. Moreover, although some theoretically unexpected details of Kiput historical phonology are shared with other North Sarawak languages, others are unique, and so justify treating this language as an exemplar of a group of languages that exhibit an unusually large number of bizarre sound changes. 2. A SKETCH OF THE SYNCHRONIC PHONOLOGY. To date very little has been published on this language. Ray (1913) contains a vocabulary of somewhat over 200 items in a phonemically inadequate transcription, and scattered data appear in various of the writer's earlier publications. Before examining the historical phonology of Kiput, it will be useful to provide an outline of the synchronic phonology of the language. A much fuller account of the phonology and morphology, together with a vocabulary of over 930 words and more than 400 sentences, is found in Blust (to appear). Table 1 lists the consonant phonemes of Kiput. The phoneme c is a voiceless palatal affricate. The glottal stop is written as "? …

This work investigates an unusual and intriguing concatenative morphophonological process which occurs in a Jordanian variety as spoken by Ahl Al-Jabal Bedouin, the native dwellers of North East Badia of Jordan. The work shows that the voiceless plosive /t/ undergoes deletion if and only if it is part of the sound feminine plural morpheme -aat. In the pre-pausal position, /t/ deletion is further compensated by the reproduction of the voiceless glottal fricative [h]. Phonologically, the final voiceless plosive /t/, in the sound feminine plural -aat, undergoes debuccalization by which it loses its original place of articulation [alveolar] and moves to the glottis to surface as [guttural] [h]. Glottal closure (glottalization) takes place via a glottal fricative [h] rather than a glottal stop [ʔ]. The results of this paper further prove that the phonological status of sound feminine pluralization in Ahl Al-Jabal dialect is significantly motivated by morphology, an interesting piece of evidence that certain morphological patterns operate in the phonological component, or at least require phonological implications.

Purpose Physiological and phonetic studies suggest that, at moderate levels of epilaryngeal stricture, the ventricular folds impinge upon the vocal folds and influence their dynamical behavior, which is thought to be responsible for constricted laryngeal sounds. In this work, the authors examine this hypothesis through biomechanical modeling. Method The dynamical response of a low-dimensional, lumped-element model of the vocal folds under the influence of vocal–ventricular fold coupling was evaluated. The model was assessed for F0 and cover-mass phase difference. Case studies of simulations of different constricted phonation types and of glottal stop illustrate various additional aspects of model performance. Results Simulated vocal–ventricular fold coupling lowers F0 and perturbs the mucosal wave. It also appears to reinforce irregular patterns of oscillation, and it can enhance laryngeal closure in glottal stop production. Conclusion The effects of simulated vocal–ventricular fold coupling are consistent with sounds, such as creaky voice, harsh voice, and glottal stop, that have been observed to involve epilaryngeal stricture and apparent contact between the vocal folds and ventricular folds. This supports the view that vocal–ventricular fold coupling is important in the vibratory dynamics of such sounds and, furthermore, suggests that these sounds may intrinsically require epilaryngeal stricture.

Finnish talk-in-interaction is shown to use creak and glottal stops distinctively. Creak has turn-yielding functions, and glottal stops have turn-holding functions. Rather than either intuition or the use of large corpora with no attention to the interactional function in which the talk is embedded, the methodology used is that of interactional linguistics (e.g. Couper-Kuhlen & Selting 1996 for a prosodic approach), which places emphasis on demonstrating participants' local orientation to linguistic categories within interactional sequences.

Edges of prosodic and morphological constituents often behave differently from non-edge positions, but it is not always clear how such edge-effects are brought about. This paper is a case study of an edge-phenomenon in different varieties of German. Thus, glottal stop epenthesis is limited to edges of morphemes in Southern German, but not in Standard German and insertion of a dissimilatory feature in /sC/ clusters is limited to root edges in Standard German, though not in some Southern varieties. I argue that an analysis in terms of optimality theory (Prince/Smolensky 1993) based on ranked, violable constraints can best account for these facts: high ranking of a constraint banning domain-internal epenthesis (O-CONTIGUITY) with respect to insertion triggering constraints can explain the restriction to edges, low ranking of the same constraint will result in application of epenthesis or dissimilation also inside the specified domain. Moreover, the implementation of the analysis in terms of optimality theory can shed light on this typical pattern of variation among closely related varieties of the same language: the difference between the variety where a process takes place everywhere and the variety where the same process applies only at edges will be analyzed as a minimal difference in faithfulness of the two grammars involved.

This article investigates glide and glottal stop insertion in Bulgarian, Slovak (two dialects), Polish (two dialects), and Czech. It is argued that Optimality Theory should be modified by introducing derivational levels and that OT auxiliary theories, in particular, output-output theory, MAX (Feature) theory, and sympathy theory, should be rejected.

Over the last 4 decades remarkable progress has been made in the treatment of cleft palate: the rate of attaining normal or nearly normal speech after surgery has risen from about 65% 40 years ago to nearly 90% or more nowadays. One of the main factors is intratracheal intubation anesthesia that has made the surgery much safer and easier. Improved surgical technique and speech therapy also played a great role. This paper deals with two problems: (1) Slight velopharyngeal incompetence: The combined use of fiberscopy and fluorovideoscopy can provide useful information as to: (a) the exact place of the faulty articulation, (b) the detailed pattern of inconsistent velopharyngeal function, (c) changes in articulation induced by speech therapy, and (d) the relation between velopharyngeal function and faulty articulation. All the above information greatly facilitates speech therapy for cleft palate speech. It should be done with utmost care though due to possible adverse effects of radiation. (2) Analysis of faulty articulation. It was revealed that faulty articulations such as laryngeal fricative and affricates, pharyngeal stop, and glottal stop in cleft palate speech, secondary to velopharyngeal incompetence, were produced by articulation in the larynx at various sites such as the epiglottis, arytenoids, aryepiglottic folds and vocal folds. These faulty articulation points were located lower than supposed on the basis of auditory perception.

Glottal stops that occur in vowel-consonant-vowel context are often not realized as stops at all, but rather show voicing that is continuous throughout the glottal constriction gesture. Glottal articulations that are realized in this way are apparently marked by reductions in amplitude and fundamental frequency. In the present study measurements from naturally produced utterances containing the sequence /o 2 o/ (i.e., a glottal stop separating two identical vowels) were used to create a set of synthetic stimuli that varied in their F 0 and amplitude contours. The utterances were resynthesized in six ways: (a) original pitch/original amplitude, (b) original pitch/flat amplitude, (c) flat pitch/original amplitude, (d) flat pitch/flat amplitude, (e) flat pitch/inverted amplitude, and (f) inverted pitch/flat amplitude. Results indicated that: (a) a dip in the pitch contour is nearly always sufficient to cue the presence of a glottal stop in the absence of any drop in amplitude , (b) a dip in the amplitude contour is usually sufficient to cue the presence of a glottal stop, and (c) signals with inverted contours were not heard as glottal stops, indicating that it is not merely an abrupt change that is needed to signal a glottal stop.