Glottally Unstoppable: Describing the Glottal Stop in Philippine Languages
Speech sounds in Philippine languages
Speech sounds, also called segments, can be classified into two major categories: consonants and vowels. Above the level of these sounds are phonetic properties called suprasegmentals. This includes the syllable, stress, tone and intonation.
Most Philippine languages have fewer than 18 consonants and have three to four native vowels. The most common consonant sounds are [p, t, k, b, d, g, m, n, ŋ, l, r, w, j, s, h, ʔ (also referred to as the glottal stop)].
Other consonant sounds found in Philippine languages are either allophones or variations of distinct phonemes: several Northern Philippine languages such as Ivatan, Finallig, Balangao, Gaddang, Ifugao, Southern Kalinga have [f], [v] and [t∫]; others also have velar fricatives [x] and [ɣ] and bilabial fricatives [β], [ɸ]; Mamanwa has [z]; Maranao has both aspirated stops [kh] and [th], and unspirated stops [k], [t] (Gieser, 1987 in McEachern, 2013).
Establishing the phonemic status of the glottal stop
One of the distinct features of Philippine languages is the occurrence of the glottal stop, often described in school textbooks as “impit na tunog”. However, it has been overlooked in the past and often regarded as another suprasegmental feature of a vowel. This is evident in the many symbols (e.g. dash, grave accent and circumflex) that are used to represent the glottal stop.
A useful technique in determining the phonemic status of a given sound is through minimal pair distinction. Minimal pairs are helpful in determining sounds that are used to contrast words with different meanings; these sounds are called phonemes. Sounds that have their own phonemic status produce entirely different words. These sounds are in contrastive distribution, meaning they can occur in the same environment in words with different meanings.
The following examples prove the distinct status of the glottal stop as a meaningful sound in Philippine languages.
- dá`an ‘old’ vs dálan ‘road’ (Masbatenyo)
- baga ‘ember’ vs baga` ’lung’ (Tagalog)
- pag-asa ‘hope’ vs *pagasa (Tagalog)
As shown in example 3, the absence of the dash symbol that represents the glottal stop renders the word *pagasa ungramatical. The presence or absence of a glottal stop leads to differences in meaning.
The presence of the glottal stop can also be established using a software (e.g. Praat) which is used to analyze sound properties at the acoustic level. Figure 1 shows the presence of the glottal stop as viewed in the Praat window.
In Kalanguya, the glottal can be geminated or doubled (Santiago, 2010). This is demonstrated by Figure 2.
Figure 2 above shows the highlighted portion in which the glottal stop is doubled, which is longer than the single glottal stop in Masbatenyo (see Figure 1).
Symbolizing the glottal stop
Orthographically, the glottal stop has been represented differently by the following symbols: dash ( — ) when it occurs within the word as in Masbatenyo tul-an ‘bone,’ Tagalog pag-ibig ‘love’; a grave accent ( ˋ ) as in Masbatenyo túbì ‘water,’ Tausug ka’nu ‘when’; and a circumflex ( ^ ) as in punô ‘full’ which represents the co-occurrence of glottal stop and stress or accent at the word-final position. It is not represented at all, specifically when it occurs between vowels and at the beginning of a vowel-initial word, i.e. dáan ‘old,’ idû ‘dog’.
Given its phonemic status, it is imperative to establish an agreed and easily understandable symbol to represent it. In symbolizing the glottal stop, Nolasco (2012), as cited by Hernandez (2012) has proposed the following options:
a) Don’t write it, since speakers of the language know if there’s one anyway;
b) Don’t write it, because it’s difficult to write it;
c) Write it for the purposes of accuracy; and
d) Make it optional
It is suggested that glottal stop should be symbolized in the early grades level. As the learners are able to grasp the concept of glottal stop, the teacher can gradually make it optional until it is no longer needed to be symbolized.
Ceña (2014) proposed that letters should be used to represent the phonemes and diacritics should be used to mark any feature of a phoneme (e.g. acute ( ´ ) for stress or accent, and macron ( ¯ ) for vowel length). Since the glottal stop is a distinct phoneme, it warrants its own letter. Ceña (2014) proposed the use of grave accent ( ` ) to represent the glottal stop in Filipino. The preference to grave accent over other traditional symbols such circumflex ( ^ ) and dash ( — ) also solve certain problems such as aesthetic ones, e.g. `ati` versus ^atí^ versus -atí- ‘dirty’.
In the recently concluded First Minasbate Congress, the stakeholders of Minasbate language (also referred to as Masbatenyo) agreed to use the grave accent to represent the glottal stop in Minasbate. They also agreed to symbolize in the following instances:
- between a consonant and a vowel, e.g pus`on, bag`o
- in the final position of the word, e.g. túro`, pakó`
- between two vowels, e.g ti`il, di`in, gu`ol,
- in the beginning of a word that starts with a vowel, e.g `adlaw, `ako, `amó`
References:
Bird, Sonya & Wang, Qian. Ling 380: Acoustic Phonetics Lab Manual. Department of Linguistics, University of Virginia.
Ceña, Resty M. (2014). Morpolohya ng Filipino.
Hernandez, Butch. (2012). Spell well, read well. Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved: http://opinion.inquirer.net/36250/spell-well-read-well-write-well
McEachern, Firth. 2013. Local languages and literacy in the Philippines: Implications for early grade reading assessment and instruction. Eddata II Reports. USAID. Retrieved from:
https://www.eddataglobal.org/countries/index.cfm?fuseaction=pubDetail&ID=560
Rosero, Michael Wilson I. (2016). A Grammatical Sketch of Masbatenyo. University of the Philippines-Diliman. Unpublished undergraduate thesis.
Rosero, Michael Wilson I & Balbuena, Sherwin E. (2016). Working Ortography of Masbatenyo. First Minasbate Congress.
Santiago, Paul Julian. (2010). An Articulatory and Acoustic Investigation of Kalanguya Consonants. Paper presented at the 1st Philippine Conference-Workshop on the Mother Tongue-based Multilingual Education, Capitol University.
