glottal stop
glottal stop
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
Cite This Source
| glottal stop | |
| —n | |
| a plosive speech sound produced as the sudden onset of a vowel in several languages, such as German, by first tightly closing the glottis and then allowing the air pressure to build up in the trachea before opening the glottis, causing the air to escape with force | |
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source
| an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle. |
| an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance. |
glottal stop
in phonetics, a momentary check on the airstream caused by closing the glottis (the space between the vocal cords) and thereby stopping the vibration of the vocal cords. Upon release, there is a slight choke, or coughlike explosive sound. The glottal stop is not a separate phoneme (or distinctive sound) in English, though it is one of the allophones of the t phoneme in some dialects (as in Cockney or Brooklynese "bo'l" for "bottle"). It functions as a phoneme in numerous other languages, however, such as Arabic and many American Indian languages. The process of momentary partial or complete closure of the glottis is known as glottalization. The closure may occur slightly before the primary articulation, simultaneously with it, or slightly after it. Several African and American Indian languages have glottalized stops and sibilants, and many languages also have glottalized vowels.
Learn more about glottal stop with a free trial on Britannica.com.
Cite This Source
