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Gating An experimental technique which involves the presentation of progressively longer portions of a stimulus -- a word, phrase, or sentence. The aim is to discover the earliest point at which the subjects are able to identify the stimulus, and to investigate how this is affected by other factors, such as amount of contextual information, differences in accent, and the like. See the link for a demonstration
Geminate [ˈdʒemɪnət] A sequence of two identical sounds, usually consonants.
GEN [dʒen] (Short for Generator) A function in Optimality Theory which generates candidate output forms which are then evaluated by the grammar. See also EVAL.
Genioglossus [ˌdʒiːniəʊˈɡlɒsəs] See tongue muscles.
Gesture See feature geometry.
Glide A name sometimes used for an approximant articulation which resembles a vowel in quality. Also called semivowel.
Gliding A child phonology process. Liquid consonants (r and l sounds) are replaced by glides. Example: lorry > [ˈwɒwi].

Glottal [ˈɡlɒtl] The name of a place of articulation. The articulators concerned are the vocal folds. [?] is an example of a glottal sound.

Glottalic airstream mechanism [ɡlɒˈtælɪk] See airstream mechanism.

Glottaling Also called Glottal replacement. The replacement of a consonant sound with a glottal stop. The sound affected in English is usually [t], as in the pronunciation [nɒʔ naʊ] for not now.

Glottalisation [ˌɡlɒtəlaɪˈzeɪʃn] (adj. glottalised [ˈɡlɒtəlaɪzd] (1) Of consonants, accompanied by a glottal stop. This phenomenon is also called glottal reinforcement and pre-glottalisation. In many accents of English the voiceless plosives [p t k] are glottalised in the coda of a syllable when preceded by a sonorant (vowel or consonant) and followed by a consonant. Example: wants > [wɒnʔts]. (2) Especially in American writings, glottalised is equivalent to ejective.

Glottal reinforcement See glottalisation (1).

Glottal replacement See Glottaling.

Glottal stop A consonant articulation symbolised [ʔ] and sometimes called a glottal plosive. Tight closure of the vocal folds interrupts the pulmonic egressive airstream and this causes an increase in pressure below the glottis. When the vocal folds part, the compressed air is released. The articulation is similar to other plosive articulations.

Glottis [ˈɡlɒtɪs] The space between the vocal folds.

Grammatical item See lexical item.

Grassman's Law A phonological rule capturing an aspect of the development of Indo-European languages from the parent language Proto-Indo-European. The first of two aspirated consonants in a word loses its aspiration.

Grave The same as [-acute]

Great Vowel Shift A diachronic restructuring of the vowel system of Early Modern English. All the vowels of the long vowel subsystem raised by one degree, open to open-mid, open-mid to close-mid, close-mid to close. The two close vowels [i] and [u] diphthongised to [aɪ] and [aʊ] respectively.

Greek letter variable A device used in writing phonological rules. The use of a Greek letter in a feature specification in place of a + or - indicates that the feature can take either a positive or negative value, but the same Greek letter must take the same value throughout the rule. This device is used to collapse a number of similar rules into one. For example, a language might display the following characteristics (1) the first of two obstruents must be voiced if the following obstruent is voiced (2) the first of two obstruents must be voiceless if the second is voiceless. One could write two rules to capture this:

[-son] --> [+voi] / ___ [-son, +voi]
[-son] --> [-voi] / ___ [-son, -voi]

This solution misses the generalisation that the first obstruent agrees with whatever voicing value the second obstruent has. Using a Greek letter variable the rules would be collapsed into:

[-son] --> [αvoi] / ___ [-son, αvoi]

Sometimes it is necessary to capture the situation where segments disagree in the value for some feature. In this case a minus sign is used before the second occurrence of the Greek letter. Thus the rule:

[-son] --> [αvoi] / ___ [-son, -αvoi]

says that if the second obstruent is voiced the first must be voiceless and if it is voiceless the first must be voiced.

Grid See metrical grid.

Grimm's law (Also called Rask's-Grimm's rule or The First Germanic Sound Shift) A set of complex historical sound changes, first discovered by Friedrich von Schlegel and Rasmus Rask, but developed and publicised by Jakob Grimm of fairy tale fame. The changes relate the plosive system reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European (PIE) to that of Proto-Germanic (PGmc) and explain the differences between Germanic languages and other Indo-European languages, such as Greek and Latin, which were not subject to the changes. For example, compare Latin pater, piscis etc. to English father, fish etc. The PIE plosive system is reconstructed as having:
- voiceless plosives [p t k] which were replaced by [f θ x] in PGmc
- voiced plosives [b d g] which were devoiced in PGmc
- voiced aspirated plosives [bʱ dʱ gʱ] which were replaced by plain voiced plosives in PGmc
Apparent exceptions to Grimm's law are dealt with by the later Verner's law.
Grooved fricative A fricative sound, such as [s] or [z], where the surface of the tongue is formed into a groove running front to back. The opposite term is slit fricative.

Group The term group is found in a number of combinations, including breath group, sense group and word group. All of these refer to essentially the same concept, namely a group of words which constitute the domain of a complete intonation pattern.

Guttural [ˈɡʌtərəl] An obsolete term for a place of articulation at the rear of the vocal tract. Velar, uvular, pharyngeal and possibly glottal articulations used to be labelled as gutturals.