Why do glottal stops and low vowels like each other? Jana Brunner & Marzena Żygis Centre for General Linguistics, Berlin brunner@zas.gwz-berlin.de, zygis@zas.gwz-berlin.de ABSTRACT The aim of the present study is two-fold. First, we will show that glottal stops/glottalization and low vowels are likely to co-occur in typologically different languages. Second, we will investigate the question whether this widely attested co- occurrence of glottalization and low vowels could be due to a perceptual phenomenon; i.e. differences in the perception of vowel quality of glottalized as compared to non-glottalized vowels. We hypothesized that vowels are perceived lower in their height if they are glottalized. In order to test our hypothesis we conducted a perceptual experiment with two German continua of b[i]ten- b[e]ten (‘to offer’, ‘to pray’), a non-glottalized and a glottalized one. 23 German subjects took part in an identification test in which they were asked to indicate whether they perceived words from these continua as b[i]ten or b[e]ten. The data show very clearly that subjects perceive b[e]ten more often than b[i]ten if the vowel is glottalized. This result indicates that the co-occurrence of glottal sounds and low vowels in the languages of the world could actually originate in a reinterpretation of glottalized higher vowels as lower ones. Keywords: glottal stop, glottalization, vowel lowering, perception, sound change. 1. INTRODUCTION An investigation of phonological phenomena involving glottal stops and vowels shows that the presence of glottal stops/glottalization influences the quality of the surrounding vowels: the vowels are lowered. Such processes take place in several typologically different languages. Other types of evidence including orthography and phonotactics also point to a preference of low vowels rather than non-low ones to co-occur with glottal stops/glottalization. 1.1. Phonological processes In Klallam (a Salish language), the non-low vowels /i u ə/ are lowered to /ε o a/, respectively, when followed by [ʔ]. For example, /p ʔ íх w ŋ/ is pronounced as [p ʔ εʔх w ŋ] ‘overflow’/‘overflowing’ and /šúpt/ as [šóʔpt] ‘whistle’/‘whistling’ [17]. In the reduplication processes in Nisgha (a Tsimshianic language) the quality of the vowel in the prefix depends on the surrounding segments. If the stem starts with a coronal stop, the vowel in the prefix is also coronal: /tam ʔ / is reduplicated to [tim-tam ʔ ] ‘to press’ but if the initial-stem consonant is a glottal stop the vowel in the prefix is the low vowel [a]: /ʔux/ is pronounced as [ʔax-ʔux] ‘to throw’ ([14], [15]). In Tigrinya (Ethio-Semitic language), the mid central vowel /ə/ is lowered to [a] following pharyngeals and laryngeals in the regular conjunction pattern. For example, /səbərə/ is pronounced as [ʔabərə] ‘he broke/he arrested’ [2]. Lillooet (a Salish language) shows a clear coarticulation induced variation in schwa- epenthesis: [ə] changes to [] in between labialized non-uvular/non-pharyngeal consonants (C w _C w ), to [] before labialised uvular/pharyngeal sounds, and to [ɪ] between coronal sounds. However, if a glottal stop follows the schwa, then the schwa changes to [a] ([14], [16]). In Besleney (an East Circassian language) the epenthetic schwa [ə] is realized as [i] in the context of palatalized consonants, as [u] in the environment of labialized consonants and as [a] near gutturals including laryngeals [11], [14]. In Karanga and Zezuru (dialects of Shona, a Bantu language) the hiatus, i.e. the co-occurrence of two adjacent vowels is resolved in the following way: if the second vowel is /i/ or /e/ a glide [j] is inserted between the vowels. If the second vowel is /u/ or /o/ a glide [w] is inserted. However, if the second vowel is /a/, then the glottal stop appears [9]. 1.2. Other types of evidence Besides phonological processes there are also other types of evidence suggesting that low vowels are likely to occur with glottal stops/glottalization. One piece of evidence comes from voice quality which shows preferences regarding the quality of