Glottalisation

Glottalisation is a phonetic process in which the glottis—the opening between the vocal folds—becomes constricted or fully closed during the articulation of a segment. This constriction can alter voicing and voice quality and may result in a glottal stop when the closure is complete, or in a creaky or pressed voice when the glottal aperture is narrow but not closed. Glottalisation can affect consonants, vowels, or syllable boundaries, and is described in both phonetics and phonology as a laryngeal effect on articulation.

Articulatory realization: The glottal stop [ʔ] is a common manifestation of full glottal closure and may serve as a phoneme in some languages or as an allophonic variant in others. In vowels and sonorants, glottalisation often takes the form of creaky voice (creaky phonation), a low-frequency, irregular vocal fold vibration that may be indicated in transcription by a diacritic under the vowel symbol (for example, a̰). In languages that contrast modal voice with glottalized segments, glottalisation contributes to phonemic distinctions.

Cross-linguistic distribution: Glottalisation is widely attested cross-linguistically and can be a diachronic change or a current dialectal feature. In English and other Germanic languages, the glottal stop is frequently used as an intervocalic or final substitute for a consonant in casual speech. In other languages, glottalised vowels or consonants may form a phonemic inventory and participate in contrasts in word meaning. Glottalisation is distinct from related laryngeal processes such as pharyngealization or velarization, though these can interact with it in descriptive analyses.

See also glottal stop, creaky voice, laryngealization.