Re: glottals

Alexandre Lang wrote:


> > OTOH [aa] will most likely involve continuous voicing in the interval
> > between the two a's (the so-called "voiced h", or "hiatus". It's two
> > distinct syllables.  Note that that [a(H)a] is not a long a, which is
> > simply
> > the prolongation of the single vowel sound, so [a:], usually considered
> > just
> > one distinct syllable.
>
> Is it phonetically legal to have [aa]? i always thought it wasn't
> possible to have 2 vowels together in a row...
> --
I don't see why not, _phonetically_; after all, you can have sequences of
two distinct V (cf. the Fr. name Raoul, or Span. leer, imperative lee, pret.
leí), so identicals must be possible too. But it's true that most natlangs
seem to go out of their way to avoid such sequences, usually by inserting
various glides-- [j] after front vowels, [w] after rounded vowels, and
...what?... between identicals?  That varies, sometimes elision, sometimes a
glottal stop, sometimes what I'm calling the "voiced h".  At least in my
pronuciation of "Raoul" it is 2 distinct syllables, no pause inbetween the a
and the u.  Similarly in Engl., it's common to pronounce "sea eagle" (also
known as "ern(e)" ) as ['si(H)"ig@l] (though some might prefer a glottal
stop between the two vowels

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