Editing Syllable (section)

====Null onset====
Some languages forbid '''null onsets'''. In these languages, words beginning in a vowel, like the English word ''at'', are impossible.

This is less strange than it may appear at first, as most such languages allow syllables to begin with a phonemic [[glottal stop]] (the sound in the middle of English ''uh-oh'' or, in some dialects, the double T in ''button'', represented in the [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]] as {{IPA|/ʔ/}}). In English, a word that begins with a vowel may be pronounced with an [[epenthesis|epenthetic]] glottal stop when following a pause, though the glottal stop may not be a [[phoneme]] in the language.

Few languages make a phonemic distinction between a word beginning with a vowel and a word beginning with a glottal stop followed by a vowel, since the distinction will generally only be audible following another word. However, [[Maltese language|Maltese]] and some [[Polynesian languages]] do make such a distinction, as in [[Hawaiian language|Hawaiian]] {{IPA|/ahi/}} ('fire') and {{IPA|/ʔahi}}/ ← {{IPA|/kahi/}} ('tuna') and Maltese {{IPA|/∅/}} ← [[Arabic]] {{IPA|/h/}} and Maltese {{IPA|/k~ʔ/}} ← Arabic {{IPA|/q/}}.

[[Ashkenazi Hebrew|Ashkenazi]] and [[Sephardi Hebrew]] may commonly ignore {{lang|he|א}}, {{lang|he|ה}} and {{lang|he|ע}}, and Arabic forbid empty onsets. The names ''Israel'', ''Abel'', ''Abraham'', ''Omar'', ''Abdullah'', and ''Iraq'' appear not to have onsets in the first syllable, but in the original Hebrew and Arabic forms they actually begin with various consonants: the semivowel {{IPAslink|j}} in {{lang|he|יִשְׂרָאֵל}} {{transliteration|he|yisra'él}}, the glottal fricative in {{IPAslink|h}} {{lang|he|הֶבֶל}} {{transliteration|he|heḇel}}, the glottal stop {{IPAslink|ʔ}} in {{lang|he|אַבְרָהָם}} {{transliteration|he|'aḇrāhām}}, or the pharyngeal fricative {{IPAslink|ʕ}} in {{lang|ar|عُمَر}} {{transliteration|ar|ʿumar}}, {{lang|ar|عَبْدُ ٱللّٰ}} {{transliteration|ar|ʿabdu llāh}}, and {{lang|ar|عِرَاق}} {{transliteration|ar|ʿirāq}}. Conversely, the [[Arrernte language]] of central Australia may prohibit onsets altogether; if so, all syllables have the [[underlying representation|underlying shape]] VC(C).<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 4179048|title = Arrernte: A Language with No Syllable Onsets|journal = Linguistic Inquiry|volume = 30|issue = 1|pages = 1–25|last1 = Breen|first1 = Gavan|last2 = Pensalfini|first2 = Rob|year = 1999|doi = 10.1162/002438999553940|s2cid = 57564955|url = https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:209796/UQ209796_OA.pdf}}</ref>

The difference between a syllable with a null onset and one beginning with a glottal stop is often purely a difference of [[phonology|phonological]] analysis, rather than the actual pronunciation of the syllable. In some cases, the pronunciation of a (putatively) vowel-initial word when following another word – particularly, whether or not a glottal stop is inserted – indicates whether the word should be considered to have a null onset. For example, many [[Romance languages]] such as [[Spanish language|Spanish]] never insert such a glottal stop, while [[English language|English]] does so only some of the time, depending on factors such as conversation speed; in both cases, this suggests that the words in question are truly vowel-initial.

But there are exceptions here, too. For example, standard [[German language|German]] (excluding many southern accents) and [[Arabic language|Arabic]] both require that a glottal stop be inserted between a word and a following, putatively vowel-initial word. Yet such words are perceived to begin with a vowel in German but a glottal stop in Arabic. The reason for this has to do with other properties of the two languages. For example, a glottal stop does not occur in other situations in German, e.g. before a consonant or at the end of word. On the other hand, in Arabic, not only does a glottal stop occur in such situations (e.g. Classical {{IPA|/saʔala/}} "he asked", {{IPA|/raʔj/}} "opinion", {{IPA|/dˤawʔ/}} "light"), but it occurs in alternations that are clearly indicative of its phonemic status (cf. Classical {{IPA|/kaːtib/}} "writer" vs. /mak{{IPA|tuːb/}} "written", {{IPA|/ʔaːkil/}} "eater" vs. {{IPA|/maʔkuːl/}} "eaten"). In other words, while the glottal stop is predictable in German (inserted only if a stressed syllable would otherwise begin with a vowel),<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wiese |first=Richard |title=Phonology of German |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2000 |isbn=9780198299509 |pages=58–61}}</ref> the same sound is a regular consonantal phoneme in Arabic. The status of this consonant in the respective writing systems corresponds to this difference: there is no reflex of the glottal stop in [[German orthography]], but there is a letter in the Arabic alphabet ([[Hamza]] (<bdi>ء</bdi>)).

The writing system of a language may not correspond with the phonological analysis of the language in terms of its handling of (potentially) null onsets. For example, in some languages written in the [[Latin alphabet]], an initial glottal stop is left unwritten (see the German example); on the other hand, some languages written using non-Latin alphabets such as [[abjad]]s and [[abugida]]s have a special [[zero consonant]] to represent a null onset. As an example, in [[Hangul]], the alphabet of the [[Korean language]], a null onset is represented with ㅇ at the left or top section of a [[grapheme]], as in {{lang|ko|역}} "station", pronounced ''yeok'', where the [[diphthong]] ''yeo'' is the nucleus and ''k'' is the coda.