Voiceless glottal fricative

Consonantal sound represented by ⟨h⟩ in IPA

The voiceless glottal fricative, sometimes called voiceless glottal transition or the aspirate,^[1][2] is a type of sound used in some spoken languages that patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant phonologically, but often lacks the usual phonetic characteristics of a consonant. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨h⟩. However, [h] has been described as a voiceless phonation because in many languages, it lacks the place and manner of articulation of a prototypical consonant, as well as the height and backness of a prototypical vowel:

[h and ɦ] have been described as voiceless or breathy voiced counterparts of the vowels that follow them [but] the shape of the vocal tract [...] is often simply that of the surrounding sounds. [...] Accordingly, in such cases it is more appropriate to regard h and ɦ as segments that have only a laryngeal specification, and are unmarked for all other features. There are other languages [such as Hebrew and Arabic] which show a more definite displacement of the formant frequencies for h, suggesting it has a [glottal] constriction associated with its production.^[3]

An effort undertaken at the Kiel Convention in 1989 attempted to move glottal fricatives, both voiceless and voiced, to approximants.^[4][5] The fricative may be represented with the extIPA diacritic for strong articulation, ⟨h͈⟩.

The Shanghainese language, among others, contrasts voiced and voiceless glottal fricatives.^[6]

Features

Features of the "voiceless glottal fricative":

• In some languages, it has the constricted manner of articulation of a fricative. However, in many if not most it is a transitional state of the glottis or a approximant, with no manner of articulation other than its phonation type. Because there is no other constriction to produce friction in the vocal tract in the languages they are familiar with, many phoneticians^[who?] no longer consider [h] to be a fricative. However, the term "fricative" is generally retained for historical reasons.
• It may have a glottal place of articulation. However, it may have no fricative articulation, in which case the term 'glottal' only refers to the nature of its phonation, and does not describe the location of the stricture nor the turbulence. All consonants except for the glottals, and all vowels, have an individual place of articulation in addition to the state of the glottis. As with all other consonants, surrounding vowels influence the pronunciation [h], and [h] has sometimes been presented as a voiceless vowel, having the place of articulation of these surrounding vowels.
• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the central–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Fricative or transition

See also

• Voiced glottal fricative
• Voiceless nasal glottal fricative
• Index of phonetics articles

Notes

1. Smyth (1920, §16: description of stops and h)
2. Wright & Wright (1925, §7h: initial h)
3. Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:325–326)
4. Ladefoged (1990), p. 24–25. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFLadefoged1990 (help)
5. Garellek et al. (2021). sfnp error: no target: CITEREFGarellekYuanYaqianvan_Doren2021 (help)
6. Qian 2003, pp.14-16.
7. Thelwall (1990:38)
8. Dum-Tragut (2009:13)
9. Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina (2003:24)
10. Grønnum (2005:125)
11. Shosted & Chikovani (2006:255)
12. Kohler (1999:86–87)
13. Arvaniti (1999:175)
14. Ladefoged (2005:139)
15. Hall (1944:75)
16. Gilles & Trouvain (2013:67–68)
17. Barbosa & Albano (2004:5–6)
18. (in Portuguese) Pará Federal University – The pronunciation of /s/ and its variations across Bragança municipality's Portuguese Archived 2013-07-07 at the Wayback Machine
19. (in Portuguese) Rio de Janeiro Federal University – The variation of post-vocallic /S/ in the speech of Petrópolis, Itaperuna and Paraty Archived 2017-12-15 at the Wayback Machine
20. "ro-sheòl". www.faclair.com. Retrieved 1 April 2021.
21. Landau et al. (1999:68)
22. Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003:258)
23. Thompson (1959:458–461)

References

• Arvaniti, Amalia (1999), "Cypriot Greek" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 29 (2): 173–178, doi:10.1017/S002510030000654X, S2CID 163926812
• Barbosa, Plínio A.; Albano, Eleonora C. (2004), "Brazilian Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (2): 227–232, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001756
• Dum-Tragut, Jasmine (2009), Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company
• Gilles, Peter; Trouvain, Jürgen (2013), "Luxembourgish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43 (1): 67–74, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000278
• Grønnum, Nina (2005), Fonetik og fonologi, Almen og Dansk (3rd ed.), Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, ISBN 87-500-3865-6
• Hall, Robert A. Jr. (1944). "Italian phonemes and orthography". Italica. 21 (2). American Association of Teachers of Italian: 72–82. doi:10.2307/475860. JSTOR 475860.
• Hualde, José Ignacio; Ortiz de Urbina, Jon, eds. (2003), A grammar of Basque, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 3-11-017683-1
• Kohler, Klaus (1999), "German", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 86–89, ISBN 0-521-63751-1
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell
• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
• Landau, Ernestina; Lončarić, Mijo; Horga, Damir; Škarić, Ivo (1999), "Croatian", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 66–69, ISBN 0-521-65236-7
• Laufer, Asher (1991), "Phonetic Representation: Glottal Fricatives", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 21 (2): 91–93, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004448, S2CID 145231104
• Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (2): 255–259, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373
• Shosted, Ryan K.; Chikovani, Vakhtang (2006), "Standard Georgian" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 36 (2): 255–264, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002659
• Smyth, Herbert Weir (1920). A Greek Grammar for Colleges. American Book Company. Retrieved 1 January 2014 – via CCEL.
• Thelwall, Robin (1990), "Illustrations of the IPA: Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 20 (2): 37–41, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004266, S2CID 243640727
• Thompson, Laurence (1959), "Saigon phonemics", Language, 35 (3): 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232
• Wright, Joseph; Wright, Elizabeth Mary (1925). Old English Grammar (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.

External links

• List of languages with [h] on PHOIBLE