Creaky-voiced glottal approximant
Consonantal sound
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A creaky-voiced glottal approximant is a consonant sound in some languages. It involves tension in the glottis and diminution of airflow, compared to surrounding vowels, but not full occlusion. It is a common phonetic realization of a glottal stop, especially intervocalically, but is only rarely contrastive except when gemination is involved.
There is no symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet dedicated for this sound, but the extIPA pre-/post-creak diacritic ⟨˷⟩ can be used. One source has used the transcription ⟨ʔ̬⟩,[1] and another has used ⟨ʔ̰⟩;[2] however, neither are physically possible,[a] and the sources quote Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996), who use the IPA wildcard ⟨*⟩ in their transcription.
- Just as modal voice and creaky voice are phonation states, so too is a glottal stop [ʔ]; by definition, the glottis is closed, blocking the airstream, preventing any occurrence of voicing.[3] Similarly, the glottal fricatives [h] and [ɦ] are frequently analyzed as segmental realizations of phonation states (voiceless aspiration and breathy voice) and lacking a place of articulation other than the glottis, as shown for example in Garellek et al. (2023). Adding a creaky-voice diacritic to any of these symbols would imply contradicting laryngeal settings.
Features
Features of a creaky-voiced glottal approximant:
- Its manner of articulation is approximant, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract at the place of articulation, but not enough to produce a turbulent airstream.
- Its phonation is creaky-voiced.
- It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
- Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the median–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
- Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.
Occurrence
It is an intervocalic allophone of a glottal stop in many languages; in languages with gemination, it may only be a stop intervocalically when geminate.[4]
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gimi | hagok | [ha˷oʔ] | 'many' | The voiced equivalent of a glottal stop /ʔ/; /˷/ and /ʔ/ correspond to /ɡ/ and /k/ in neighboring languages.[4] One source analyses the pair instead as /ʔ/ and /ʔː/. |
| Korebaju | [út͡ʃàpè˷é] | 'oil' | Non-contrastive allophone of /ʔ/.[5] | |
| Siona | maʼa | [ma̰a̰] | 'path' | Allophone of /ʔ/ typically realized as creak on surrounding vowels.[6] |