Glottal Stops in General American (Intervocalic Environments)

Abstract

This paper aims at investigating the occurrence of glottal stops in General American accents in intervocalic phonetic environments. So far this particular aspect of American pronunciation has only received occasional mention in the literature, especially when compared to various descriptions and analyses of the use of glottal stops in Britain. The present study focuses primarily on the age factor and whether or not it has any significant bearing on the frequency of glottal stops. In this comparative pilot study, three speakers were investigated using selected samples: Andy Rooney (age 91), Keith Malley (age 36) and Jesse Thorn (age 29). The speakers use moderately standard form of General American and what may be classified as a semi-casual style, being somewhat monitored and thus falling in between interview style (IS) and casual style (CS) in Labovian terms. The study reveals interesting phonetic conditioning for glottal stops especially in the intervocalic position. Certain vowels preceding or following the consonant /t/ seem to trigger glottalling more readily than others.

Appendices

Appendix I

Environ.	Rooney	Malley	Thorn
i-	3	6	3
ɪ-	4	4	3
ε-	1	1	1
	0	0	0
	0	0	0
	0	0	0
	0	0	0
	1	1	1
	1	1	1
	0	0	0
	0	0	0
	0	0	0
	0	0	0
	2	1	1
	1	1	1
	0	0	1
-i	1	0	1
-ɪ	0	1	1
-ε	0	0	0
	0	0	0
	7	9	6
	0	0	0
	0	0	0
	0	0	0
	0	0	0
	0	0	0
	0	0	0
	3	2	2
	0	0	0
	1	3	2
	0	0	0
	1	0	0

Appendix II

	i-	ɪ-	ε-
-i	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
-ɪ	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
-ε	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	5	6	2	0	0	0	0	2	2	0	0	0	0	2	2	1
	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	2	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0
	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0