glottal stops

[Loren A. Billings]

I would like to quibble with a thing or two that Charles Mill wrote:

> Dear Paul,
> 
> This is in reply to your query about glottal stops.  (For some reasons 
> my posts to SEELANGS get bounced back.)  You say "A glo'al stop 
> alone is pure silence, so it cannot be a syllable."  Then ask "Do you 
> mean that the syllable /ends/ with a glo'al stop?  Or /begins/ with one?"
> 
> Someone else may say this, and I'm not sure if it's germaine to you 
> post, but a glottal stop isn't silent. 

Any unvoiced stop is technically silent. However, it is phonologically 
significant, as Mills continues below, in that it interrupts a stream of sounds 
(i.e., nonsilent) material.

> Like any other phonetic segment, it has a physiological gesture and 
> duration, and like all stops, it makes a sound.  If your pronunciation is 
> like mine, think of the unguarded American pronunciation of the word 
> "button".  /t/ and /n/ are both made at the same point of articulation
> (the alveolar ridge), but /t/ is a stop, while /n/ is a continant. 

At least in one theoretical framework, /n/ is not a continuant. In that 
framework it is still a stop, but not a plosive. The requirement for a sound to 
be [+continuant] is continuous flow of air over the tongue within the oral 
cavity. Both [n] and [t] are [-continuant] because there is complete blockage 
of the air over the top of the tongue. 

> You know how to make a /t/, but listen carefully tohow the /t/ in this 
> word is released!  The release is not at the alveolar ridge, but at the 
> glottis!  In other words, you're hearing a glottal stop.  But you're right, 
> stops in general don't form syllabic peaks, rather, they are found in the 
> onset or coda. 
> 
> More detail than you asked for, I know, but inquiring minds want to 
> know!  :-)
> 
> Charles Mills
> Assistant Professor of Russian
> Knox College

-- 

Loren A. Billings, Ph.D.
Associate professor of linguistics
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Chi Nan University
Puli, Nantou County 545 Taiwan

--==Mailed via NCNU E-Mail==--

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