glottal

adj. Sounds with place of articulation at the glottis are called glottal. English has a glottal fricative, [h], that is restricted to syllable-initial position, occurring in words like house and ahoy. This sound is made with the glottis in a state of aspiration: the airflow is constricted and therefore turbulent, by narrowing but not closing the vocal cords, as it passes through the glottis. English also has a glottal stop, [|], in its phonetic inventory. This sound is produced by stopping the airflow completely by closing the glottis and releasing the airflow audibly. In English, vowel-initial words are frequently preceded by a glottal stop; the interjection uh-oh! contains two glottal stops; in some dialectal variants of English, words like kitten, cotton, and Manhattan are produced with a glottal stop in place of the intervocalic /t/.

- EMF