tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 08 09:51:06 2004
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Re: glottal stop in spanish?
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 04:33:32PM +0100, Lieven L. Litaer wrote:
> Am 08.01.2004 14:28:43, schrieb [email protected]:
>
> i've never heard a spanish speaker say any sound for 'h'. it's silent, as if
> it weren't there.
>
> correct. {'} is not a "sound". They say {'ablas}
The glottal stop *is* a sound, and it appears in place of the <h>, if at all,
only at the beginning of a breath group. For instance, "tu hablas" is
[tuablas], all run together with no glottal stop between.
In other words, the <h> is *completely* silent; it does not represent
any sound at all, not even a glottal stop. What you are noticing is
that Spanish speakers, like English speakers, tend to pronounce a glottal stop
before a vowel at the beginning of a breath group. So, as a word by itself,
<agua> would likely be pronounced ['agua], with a leading glottal stop,
despite the lack of any <h>. The <h> makes no difference whatsoever,
except in some cases to keep two vowels from blending into a diphthong.
-Mark
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