Re: Glottal stops (was: B. Cthia and Nom)
Saul Epstein 
Wed, 23 Apr 1997 12:18:10 -0500

From: Rob Zook <rzook*informix,com>
Subject: Re: Glottal stops (was: B. Cthia and Nom)

>Speaking of glottal stops, does an inital "a" have a glottal
>stop added to it's start like in English? Would one pronounce it
>'a'tha or ha'tha (where the ha represents the a without the stop
>like in hawaii)?

If Vulcan has a glottal stop phoneme, that is, a phonological unit
whose expression as a glottal stop is understood by speakers as its
"true" form, then it is less likely that they would automatically toss
such a stop in at the beginning of words beginning with vowels the way
English does, because speakers would be more likely to hear the
difference between words beginning with ' and words beginning with
vowels -- just as speakers of Hawaiian do. So I would tend to think
that words beginning with vowels are not prefixed with glottal stops in
Vulcan.

--
from Saul R. Epstein
liberty <at> uit <dot> net