Re: The status of the glottal stop in Hebrew

From:    John Cowan <jcowan@...>
> Dan Sulani scripsit:
> >    But I'm not so sure that an English speaker would notice the
> > difference, given that (IIRC) English words which are perceived by
> > naive native speakers as beginning with a vowel,  usually actually begin
> > with a glottal stop! (There are probably dialects to the contrary,
> > but I can't, offhand,  think of any.)
>
> Mine, for sure.  I had to consciously learn to make initial glottal stops
> when learning German, and I think it is regularly taught to people learning
> German, not just me.  I definitely say [T&rIz@n'&pl=], not [T&r?Iz?@n'?&pl=]
> for "that is an apple".
At the danger of YAEPT:

Isn't the claim that most English dialects have glottal stops utterance
initially, not word-initially?

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Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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