Features of a voiced glottal fricative: • Its
phonation is
breathy voiced, or
murmured, which means the vocal cords are loosely vibrating, with more air escaping than in a modally voiced sound. It is sometimes referred to as a "voiced h", but this is something of a misnomer, as there is no voicing in the usual sense; "breathy voiced" or "murmured" are preferred terms. • In some languages, it has the constricted
manner of articulation of a
fricative. However, in many if not most it is a transitional state of the glottis with no manner of articulation other than its phonation type. Because there is no other constriction to produce friction in the vocal tract, most phoneticians no longer consider to be a fricative. True fricatives may have a murmured phonation
in addition to producing friction elsewhere. However, the term "fricative" is generally retained for the historical reasons. • It may have a
glottal place of articulation. However, it may have no fricative articulation, making the term
glottal mean that it is articulated by the
vocal folds, but this is the nature of its phonation rather than a separate articulation. All consonants except for the glottals, and all vowels, have an individual place of articulation in addition to the state of the glottis. As with all other consonants, surrounding vowels influence the pronunciation , and accordingly has only the place of articulation of these surrounding vowels. ==Occurrence==