The phonology of the glottal stop in Garo

Abstract

Burling (1992) provides many detailed and in my view accurate observations on the phonology of the Tibeto-Burman language Garo. He also points out that the glottal stop [7] acts in some ways like a tone and unlike a regular consonant. The properties of the Garo 171 are summarized in (1). (1) a. [7] occurs only in the coda but not in the onset. b. [CVI] syllables are similar to [CV] instead of [CVC]. c. [7] is the only coda that is transparent to vowel assimilation. d. [7] is subject to deletion, but other C codas are not. e. [7] is not restricted to the coda position, but may occur on other segments.