Re: Glottal stops (was: B. Cthia and Nom)
Rob Zook 
Wed, 23 Apr 1997 16:35:41 -0500

At 12:18 PM 4/23/97 -0500, you wrote:
>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.

Yes, that makes sense. Which would make "ha'tha" a more accurate
transliteration of a'tha, at least for English speakers learning to
speak Vulcan.


Rob