1

Glottal fricative:

/ h

/ h

/ h

/ h ////

1.

[

h]- word-initial position.

2. Contrast: [

h] vs ‘zero’ (the glottal stop [])

3. Word-medial intervocalic position: [

h]~[]

4.

[

h] in context

2

5

.

‘Silent h’ (/h/ = ‘zero’)

6.

Vocabulary list

7. Articulated/reduced h

3

Glottal stop (plosive): [

]

•

Functions of the glottal stop:

1.

Reinforcement of stops and affricates

‘stop’ [

stp]

‘Pat’ [

pæt]

‘back’ [

bæk]

‘watch’ [

wt]

‘bridge’ [

brd]

2.

Replacement of syllable final ‘t’ before sonorants ([m,n,l,r,j,w])

‘let me’ [

lemi]

‘not now’ [

nna]

‘get late’ [

elet]

‘put right’ [

prat]

‘not yet’ [

njet]

‘but what’ [

bwt]

3.

Replacement of absolute-final ‘t’

Do it! [

du]

In many varieties of English syllable-final /t/ is indeed

pronounced as [

Ȥ]. In BrE RP the /t/ of chatroom might

be (post-)alveolar or glottal or both. Except when

discussing the glottal stop, I do not use the symbol

Ȥ

in

LPD, leaving the user to infer this possibility from the fact
that the /t/ is syllable-final (and not preceded by an
obstruent). See the discussion on page 345.

http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/blog0611b.htm

4

4.

Replacement of intervocalic ‘t’

•

Listen and complete the following sentences and phrases.

•

Then transcribe the missing words.

1.

And no ______________many flash cards and designer labels Billy

_______…

2.

…that baseball is _________ than ___________…

3.

…cosy _______________...

4.

_________ your __________ Bill.

5.

Stop _______________ and ________________.

6.

Hey, barman! Three _________, please, __________.

7.

We’re changing the ______________.

8.

And you don’t want to _______________now, do you ______________?

The replacement of word-final [t] by sound-types
other than a voiceless alveolar plosive proceeds apace.

Zara uses an American-style voiced tap in ge[t

ʟ] on,

right at the beginning of the clip. In the expression I
had a time fault she appears to have entirely omitted
the final /t/. Otherwise, for post-sonorant word-final

/t/ she uses a glottal stop, as with i[

Ȥ], bu[Ȥ] he,

wen[

Ȥ] ou[Ȥ] today, capable of i[Ȥ]. In this she is

probably representative of people of her age and class
(though not of people of my age and class, and
sharply different from her grandmother).

http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/blog0608.htm