Re: another silly phonology question

Raymond Brown wrote:

> >>be a number of languages that just have /h/ as a glottal.  Is there a
> >>reason for this?
> >
> >My guess would be perceptibility. A glottal stop is much more difficult to
> >hear than [h].
>
>{sigh} I wish 'twere true.
>
>But I hear the darn glottal stop hundreds of times everyday - and I'll hear
>over and over again today.  But I'll hear [h] very few times.
But that doesn't have to do with perceptibility. That's a fact about
English phonotactics. /h/ is disappearing, [?] is developing -- they don't
have an equal status in the language. If you take a language where they do
have an equal status, then you can judge perceptibility.

>The vast majority of my students (and my younger colleagues) seem incapable
>of pronouncing [h] at all; and they seem equally incapable of pronouncing
>[t] if it is medial or final, habitually substituting [?] which, believe
>me, is quite audible.
>
>
> >I don't think this is just my English intuitions interfering,
>
>Obviously not familiar with the English of England   :)
I am.

Also, I use glottal stops in my own dialect. For exmaple, I say [bu?n] for
<button> and [ka?n] for <cotton>.


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Marcus Smith
AIM:  Anaakoot
"When you lose a language, it's like
dropping a bomb on a museum."
   -- Kenneth Hale
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