glottal consonant
{{Short description|Place of articulation}}
{{Distinguish|glottalic consonant|laryngeal consonant}}
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Glottal consonants are consonants using the glottis as their primary articulation. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the glottal fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have, while some{{who|date=July 2019}} do not consider them to be consonants at all. However, glottal consonants behave as typical consonants in many languages. For example, in Literary Arabic, most words are formed from a root C-C-C consisting of three consonants, which are inserted into templates such as {{IPA|/CaːCiC/}} or {{IPA|/maCCuːC/}}. The glottal consonants {{IPA|/h/}} and {{IPA|/ʔ/}} can occupy any of the three root consonant slots, just like "normal" consonants such as {{IPA|/k/}} or {{IPA|/n/}}.
The glottal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet are as follows:
| class=wikitable |
| rowspan="2" | IPA
! rowspan="2" | Description ! colspan="4" | Example |
|---|
| Language
! Orthography ! IPA ! Meaning |
| {{IPA|ʔ}}
| Hawaiian | {{lang|haw|Hawaiʻi}} | {{IPA|[həˈvɐjʔi, həˈwɐjʔi]}} | Hawaii |
| {{IPA|ɦ}}
| Czech | {{lang|cs|Praha}} | {{IPA|[ˈpra.ɦa]}} | Prague |
| {{IPA|h}}
| English | hat | {{IPA|[ˈhæt]}} | hat |
| {{IPA|ʔ͜h}}
| {{lang|cmn-Hani|可}} | {{IPA|[ʔ͜ho˥˧]}} | 'can, may' |
| {{IPA|ʔ̞}}
| creaky-voiced glottal approximant | Gimi | hagok | {{IPA|[haʔ̞oʔ]}} | 'many' |
Characteristics
In many languages, the "fricatives" are not true fricatives. This is a historical usage of the word. They instead represent transitional states of the glottis (phonation) without a specific place of articulation, and may behave as approximants. {{IPA|[h]}} is a voiceless transition. {{IPA|[ɦ]}} is a breathy-voiced transition, and could be transcribed as {{IPA|[h̤]}}. Lamé is one of very few languages that contrasts voiceless and voiced glottal fricatives.{{Harvcoltxt|Grønnum|2005|p=125}}
The glottal stop occurs in many languages. Often all vocalic onsets are preceded by a glottal stop, for example in German (in careful pronunciation; often omitted in practice). The Hawaiian language writes the glottal stop as the ‘okina ‘, which resembles a single open quotation mark. Some alphabets use diacritics for the glottal stop, such as hamza {{angle bracket|{{lang|ar|ء}}}} in the Arabic alphabet; in many languages of Mesoamerica, the Latin letter {{angle bracket|h}} is used for glottal stop, in Maltese, the letter {{angle bracket|q}} is used, and in many indigenous languages of the Caucasus, the letter commonly referred to as heng {{angle bracket|Ꜧ ꜧ}} is used.{{cn|date=July 2020}}
Because the glottis is necessarily closed for the glottal stop, it cannot be voiced. So-called voiced glottal stops are not full stops, but rather creaky voiced glottal approximants that may be transcribed {{IPA|[ʔ̞]}}. They occur as the intervocalic allophone of glottal stop in many languages. Gimi contrasts {{IPA|/ʔ/}} and {{IPA|/ʔ̞/}}, corresponding to {{IPA|/k/}} and {{IPA|/ɡ/}} in related languages.
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
- {{citation |last=Grønnum |first=Nina |year=2005 |title=Fonetik og fonologi, Almen og Dansk |edition=3rd |publisher=Akademisk Forlag |place=Copenhagen |isbn=87-500-3865-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9RtCAgAAQBAJ}}
- {{cite book|author-link=Peter Ladefoged|last=Ladefoged|first=Peter|author-link2=Ian Maddieson|last2=Maddieson|first2=Ian|year=1996|title=The Sounds of the World's Languages|location=Oxford|publisher=Blackwell|isbn=0-631-19814-8}}
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