Stops

Stops are generally reported to be less aspirated in Scottish Standard English (e.g. Wells 1982: 409) and the same is said for Scots, though Johnston (1997: 505) notes that aspiration is creeping into the dialects of the Central Belt. My auditory impressions from the Glasgow data are also that all speakers are less aspirated than typical Southern English English, but this has yet to be investigated acoustically (a recent student project with two informants showed consistently shorter duration of aspiration for a working-class speaker as opposed to a middle-class speaker for /t, p, k/). The place of articulation for /t, d/ can be alveolar or dental, with dental articulations reported for Scots (Wells 1982: 409; Johnston 1997: 505). In Glasgow all speakers showed degrees of advanced tongue tip/blade, indicating a fronted or dental articulation for /t, d/ (and /l, n/). I deal with /t/-glottalling, but note here that glottalling of /p/ and /k/ is also reported for Glaswegian, as are ejective realizations of emphatic utterance final stops.