Glottals

Glottals are sounds produced with the glottis, the Opening between the vocal folds. In phonetics, the term refers to a range of segments and phonation patterns that involve the glottal constriction, including the glottal stop, glottal fricatives, and glottalized vowels or consonants. Glottals are found in many languages and can function as phonemes or as allophonic variants.

The glottal stop, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by [ʔ], is a complete closure of the glottis followed by a release. It behaves as a consonant in many languages and can occur in syllable codas or in positions where other consonants would occur. In English, for example, it appears as an allophone of /t/ in syllable-and-derivational contexts, such as in certain dialects of urban speech.

Glottal fricatives are produced with a narrowed glottis that creates friction as air passes through. The voiceless glottal fricative [h] is common crosslinguistically and often occupies initial or intervocalic positions. Some languages also have a voiced glottal fricative [ɦ], which may occur as a phoneme or as an allophone.

Glottalization refers to a narrowing or closure of the glottis that affects the surrounding articulation, often leading to creaky voice or a constricted vowel. This effect can be phonemic in some languages and is also observed as a phonetic variation in vowels and sonorants in many others.

Overall, glottals constitute a broad set of articulations centered on the glottis, with substantial variation in place, voicing, and phonemic status across languages.