It's just strange to me because "t" is pronounced with the front teeth, while the glottalized "t" is produced with the back of the throat; that seems like quite a noticeable journey that couldn't have happened all at once. If I'm correct, do linguists have any clue what intermediate steps would have been taken, and can someone demonstrate a couple of those pronunciations with English words?
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2Speaking as a Londoner, who when not concentrating definitely drops the t, so you get interesting pronunciation on words like water, butter, city. Generally the reason for it amongst those that do it is down to laziness, everyone can pronounce it right, well most people, but don't. You don't have to move your mouth about as much. If I completely freeze up my mouth I can sound like quite a wideboy.– OrblingCommented Apr 19, 2011 at 0:54
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4 Answers
Short answer: The transition from /t/ to glottal stop does not require intermediate steps.
Explanation:
There are three main factors involved in the production of a consonant: place of articulation, manner of articulation, and voicing. The glottalization of /t/ is essentially a loss of place.
/t/ is a voiceless alveolar stop. These three words in the name represent the three main factors. Voiceless means there is no voiced 'hum' (as in /d/). Alveolar means that the sound is produced on the alveolar ridge (the place). Stop (also called plosive) means that the sound is made by a full closure of the oral cavity followed by a burst of air.
/ʔ/ is the (voiceless) glottal stop. As you can see by the name, 2 out of the 3 parts of articulating the sound are the same as /t/. Glottal sounds are produced in the glottis itself.
When a consonant that is normally (or formally) articulated in one part of the mouth is articulated instead in the glottis, this is a form of lenition known as debuccalization. As you can see, lenition and debuccalization are phenomena that occur independently in a vast number of languages. It is essentially a "weakening" of a consonant.
Since this is simply the loss of one feature, there are no intermediate steps — except that, in cases of a total and permanent loss of place in some context within a language, there is usually (if not always) a period where there is free variation between the lenited form and the full form, until eventually the full form becomes so rare it falls out of use.
In American English, we currently have free variation in the way we pronounce /t/ at the end of many words, like get, hat, astronaut, and so on. In careful pronunciation, a full /t/-sound (closure followed by release) is made. But often the /t/ is articulated but never released, and in many dialects (including my own), the /t/ is realized as [ʔ], the glottal stop. So, I often say [gɛʔ], [hæʔ], [æstrənɔʔ], and so on. This is an example of an intermediate stage of lenition. Perhaps, in a couple hundred years, speakers of my dialect will never pronounce the /t/ in that context.
answered Apr 19, 2011 at 1:04
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3Are you saying that the trend in human languages is for the lenited form to always triumph over the full form? Wow. Laziness is a human universal. Commented Apr 19, 2011 at 2:16
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1@Neil Coffey: I guess I can see how one could try to make that claim, but I don't find it very convincing (although maybe there are some good arguments in favor that I don't know of). If alveolar is the default, then one would predict that we would have /t/-insertion in certain places in English, but we don't. However, we do often get /ʔ/-insertion at the beginning of vowel-initial utterances, e.g. /æpəl/ realized as [ʔæpəl]. In dialects that pronounce "the" as [ðə] even before vowel-initial words, again /ʔ/ is inserted to separate the two words ([ðə ʔiɡəl]). Commented Apr 19, 2011 at 14:17
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1I disagree with this explanation. Physically speaking, you can't have a -voice +plosive without place; there would be no plosion if it isn't stopped somewhere in the vocal tract. Physically it looks like a new (glottal) articulation appears Describing /t/ -> /ʔ/ as a loss of place is phonemically reasonable, but it doesn't explain why this phonemic change occurs (why the loss of one feature results in a new articulation). Commented Aug 24, 2012 at 2:04
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1This debuccalization is conventionally referred to as a "loss of place". Generally, and certainly in English, glottal articulation is the unmarked place of articulation — a sort of default. It is the least salient, the tongue is not used at all, and these sounds are often co-articulated with a more marked consonant (e.g. that uses the tongue). Glottal stop (or /h/ if a fricative comes before it) is generally the last stop in lenition before total loss of the segment (should that occur). I don't know that there is a "why" beyond that (and the question didn't ask "why" anyway). Commented Aug 24, 2012 at 3:56
In American English, word-final stops like /t/ are commonly glottalized, so that "cat" /kæt/ is pronounced [kʰæʔ͡tˢ]. More precisely, it is realized as a co-articulated glottal and alveolar stop.
In many environments, this final stop is unreleased. Acoustically, then, there's little difference between unreleased [ʔ͡t̚] and just a plain glottal stop [ʔ] (it's the /s/-colored release that gives it distinctness), so it's not surprising that the simpler articulation is often used. (The degree this occurs varies considerably by dialect.) The /t/ -> /ʔ/ phenomenon is thus a loss of the alveolar articulation.
A special case is when /t/ is followed by /n/, as in cotton /kɑ.tn/. Plosive + nasal sequences assimilate so that the stop is unreleased; the resulting articulation is alveolarly stopped for the whole duration, during which the nasal passage opens and voicing begins. If the glottis were left open for the whole time, then the pressure from the lungs would produce an uncomfortable nareal plosive when the nasal passage opens; hence it is pronounced glottally stopped. In this case, there isn't even any articulatory difference between /ʔ͡tⁿ/ and /ʔⁿ/.
answered Aug 24, 2012 at 2:23
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I understand how /t/ can become [ʔ], but I have never considered that a co-articulation as you describe. Very interesting. I once did up some analysis of when things like bitten and kitten became glottals, but not various others (like bottom, which stays as a flap), but can't find it now.– tchrist ♦Commented Aug 24, 2012 at 2:38
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My days of formally studying linguistics are long gone, so I don't speak with the authority of a professional linguist on this particular one. But I've no reason to assume there's some evolutionary process at work here like the Great Vowel Shift.
People just hear a sound and attempt to reproduce it. Sometimes they don't really care if the phoneme they generate isn't identical to the target, so long as it's close enough to be understood. Even parents eventually give up if their kids won't roll their r's or pronounce their aitches properly.
And - this may be purely subjective - I think the glottal stop is just easier in a lot of vocalisations. So long as your audience don't think you're 'common'.
answered Apr 19, 2011 at 0:38
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@Orbling: I wouldn't exactly say I have difficulties with t, any more than I have difficulties pronouncing the word yes. Maybe glottal stops and yeahs take exactly the same effort as the full enunciations. But because some people say they're indicative of 'lazy' speech, we assume they must be 'easier'. Anyway, I personally can't be bothered to aspirate words like whip, and I couldn't roll my r's even if I wanted to. Commented Apr 19, 2011 at 22:28
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1@Orbling: My life's work has been to convince people that what they see as my laziness is in fact the dilligent application of advanced optimisation techniques. In pursuit of which I have the most limited phoneme set of anyone I know. Apparently only I can see the advantage of having a single sound to cover fall, four, full, fool, plus several other words. Less is more, I say. Commented Apr 20, 2011 at 0:09
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1@FumbleFingers: Aye, articulation is overrated. Context is everything.– OrblingCommented Apr 20, 2011 at 7:03
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3@Orbling: Absolutely. As a rule, the purpose of speaking is to be understood, so the primary context variable is your audience. I talk loudly to old folks, clearly to foriegners, and sloppily to people who know how I speak. Oh - and gibberish when I'm talking to myself, but that don't count 'cos I know what I mean anyway. Commented Apr 21, 2011 at 2:49
The Yorkshire accent misses out 'the' almost completely. If you are writing comedy Yorkshire accent you would write "going on t'internet" but it's pronounced with just a very short stop in place of the 't'
I assume this is because the 'the' is completely unnecessary and so Yorkshire people don't see why they should waste words saying it.
