Voiced glottal fricative
A voiced glottal fricative, sometimes called a breathy-voiced glottal transition, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages. It is used by some English-speakers as the "h" sound in "ahead". The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is.
A sound may have real glottal constriction in a number of languages, making it a true fricative. However, in most languages that have it, it only patterns like a fricative or approximant phonologically, and lacks the usual phonetic characteristics of a consonant. In such languages, has no inherent place or manner of articulation. Thus it has been described as a breathy-voiced counterpart of the following vowel from a phonetic point of view. However, its characteristics are also influenced by the preceding vowels and whatever other sounds surround it. Therefore, it can be described as a segment whose only consistent feature is its breathy voice phonation in such languages.
Northern Wu languages such as Shanghainese contrast voiced and voiceless glottal fricatives. The two glottal fricatives pattern like plosives.
Features
Features of a voiced glottal fricative:- Its phonation is breathy voiced, or murmured, which means the vocal cords are loosely vibrating, with more air escaping than in a modally voiced sound. It is sometimes referred to as a "voiced h". Strictly speaking this is incorrect, as there is no voicing.
- In some languages, it has the constricted manner of articulation of a fricative. However, in many if not most it is a transitional state of the glottis with no manner of articulation other than its phonation type. Because there is no other constriction to produce friction in the vocal tract, most phoneticians no longer consider to be a fricative. True fricatives may have a murmured phonation in addition to producing friction elsewhere. However, the term "fricative" is generally retained for the historical reasons.
- It may have a glottal place of articulation. However, it may have no fricative articulation, making the term glottal mean that it is articulated by the vocal folds, but this is the nature of its phonation rather than a separate articulation. All consonants except for the glottals, and all vowels, have an individual place of articulation in addition to the state of the glottis. As with all other consonants, surrounding vowels influence the pronunciation, and accordingly has only the place of articulation of these surrounding vowels.