Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Glottal Stops and word-initial vowels

From:Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Sunday, January 11, 2004, 20:49
On Sunday, January 11, 2004, at 06:12 AM, Tristan McLeay wrote:

> On Sat, 10 Jan 2004, Daniel D Hicken wrote: > >> Is it a given that word initial vowels cause humans to use a glottal stop >> such as in /?{p@l/ apple, or /?{lo/ French 'Allo' Or is it more > > You'll find that it's /alo/, I do believe.
You believe correctly, and - what's more - it's pronounced [alo]. There's no glottal stop in normal _French_ pronunciation.
> And /&p@l/, for that matter; > the [?] is non-phonemic (so [?&p@l] is correct, though).
Yep - the initial [?] is certainly non-phonemic and, in some (many?) English variants is not phonetic either. I pronounce it [&pl=] with no initial [?]
>> frequently found that there are not? I'm working on a conlang, and when >> I go through and pronounce through the words, I find that I'm wanting to >> put a glottal stop in front of the word-intial vowels when there's no >> liaison from the preceding word. >> >> Comments?
Probably a feature of your dialect of English. It was, I understand, fairly common at one time in English and is, e.g. standard practice in German.
> It's my understanding that since [?] became widespread in some British > dialects, words beginning with vowels now begin with vowels :)
This understanding is quite correct. In most varieties of colloquial Brit English (at least as spoken by those of generations younger than mine) [?] is the way medial and final /t/ is pronounced. Words that begin with vowels do just that: begin with vowels. To return to the original question - no, it ain't a universal. In some natlangs, there is a _phonemic_ difference between initial glottal stop and a lack of a glottal stop, e.d. in Samoan we have: au /au/ = to reach 'au /?au/ = to send. (<-- an earlier *kau) Ray =============================================== http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown ray.brown@freeuk.com (home) raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk (work) =============================================== "A mind which thinks at its own expense will always interfere with language." J.G. Hamann, 1760