[glottal constriction]

Counterpart

[non glottal constriction]

Feature System

Definition

The feature [glottal constriction] refers to phones produced by narrowing the glottal opening beyond its neutral position. This accounts for ejectives, implosives, and some clicks. Ladefoged (1964) argued that laryngealized voice, or creaky vocal quality, involved glottal constriction, too. Frequently, they involve total or near-total closure, although not all [glottal constrictions] do. They generally also involve secondary closures (e.g., in the oral cavity).

Purpose

The feature [glottal constrictions] helps to distinguish features made with marked narrowing of the glottal passage versus without such narrowing. Thompson and Thompson (1985:136) found that, in Shuswap, reduplicated prefixes dissimilated to become [-ejective]. For example, t’e.x-t ‘tall’, reduplicates to te-té-t’x̣t ‘taller’. To formalize this rule, it can be written as [+ejective]→[−ejective]/_σ[+ejective], although the original source does not employ features, so this is extrapolated from their data. Because ejection is a distinctive feature produced through glottal constriction, this, more broadly, shows glottalic dissimilation. In more recent theories, this is an example of the emergence of the unmarked.

History

The Jakobsonian feature used for ejectives was [checked], which referred to constriction or closure of the glottis. In SPE, the replacement feature used was [glottal constriction] (pp. 315-316, 327-329), though no rules invoked this feature in Chomsky & Halle’s examples, and that feature name was not embraced by phonologists (Sommerstein 1977). Lisker & Abramson (1971) offer a detailed critique of the SPE laryngeal features.

The feature [constricted glottis] was defined in Halle & Stevens (1971:202) as the “adduction of the arytenoid cartileges relative to the position for normal voicing”. This feature, along with [spread glottis], [stiff vocal folds] and [slack vocal folds], was a dramatic revision to the SPE laryngeal features. The feature [constricted glottis] was later conceived as a privative feature and continues to be used robustly (with several different names).

References

Chomsky, Noam, and Morris Halle. 1968. The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper and Row.

Halle, M., and K. Stevens. 1971. A note on laryngeal features. MIT Research Laboratory in Electronics. Quarterly Progress Report, 101.198-213

Ladefoged, Peter. 1990. Some proposals concerning glottal consonants. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20(2): 24–25. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100300004217.

Lisker, Leigh, and Arthur S. Abramson. 1971. Distinctive features and laryngeal control. Language 47(4).767-785.

Sommerstein, Alan H. 1977. Modern phonology. London: Edward Arnold.

Thompson, Laurence C. and M. Terry Thompson. 1985. A Grassman’s Law for Salish. For Gordon H. Fairbanks, ed. by V.Z. Ascon and R.L.Leed. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication No. 20.134-147. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Author

Allon Boettcher