more on checked tones in T-B

[F. K. L. Chiit Hlaing]

The discussion has, I think gone awkwardly. Let me consider Burmese here. All syllables that are etymologically closed with a final stop or a final palatal affricate (and are so written in the Burmese script, are in Modern Burmese pronounced with a strong glottal stop, although in Northern dialects this is accompanied by an incomplete oral closure that in fact, as I have shown years ago, affects the vowel quality (what are written with final dentals have phoneticallly fronted vowels, and that is true even of "line" syllables that have a final nasal or nasalized vowel). They are indeed "checked", meaning that the sonorancy/voicing of the vowel, its vowelness, so to say, is cut off and the vowel has less than two morae. in Burmese (by the way also  in most Chin languages, the initial pitch of the
 syllable is high, but it has, if you will, no time/space to fall from that pitch, which is what checking does of course. The creaky tone, etymologically and phonetically very like the Mandarin 4th tone, has an incomplete laryngeal/glottal constriction, so that is is not checked; meaning to say, it starts high in pitch, but has some vocalic space in which to fall away, so that the vocalism sort of dies off somewhat, which is what creakiness is all about. It is not, if you will, what in some other languages of the region, is often referred to as a live syllable, because the vocalic/voice/sonorancy if in fact reduced before the moraic length of the vowel is completed. It is not accompanied by any movement of the tongue towards oral closure, as Northern dialect checked/dead tones are. For some speakers in some dialects, nowadays, however, the distinction, at least phonetically, between checked and creaky tones is not made, so that the creakiness is
 replaced by a genuine glottal stop (not accompanied by any oral semi-closure and thus, not affecting the vowel quality). In such cases, for instance, the only distinction between the word for moon/month (la. - creaky) and the word for Middle (written lat) is that the vowel of the former is phonetically pretty standard low, mid , whilst the vowel of the latter is slightly but noticeable fronted, especially in far northern dialects like that of the Sagaing District.
Kris
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