| Sound change and alternation |
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Debuccalization is a sound change in which a consonant loses its original place of articulation and becomes [h] or [ʔ] (glottal stop). The pronunciation of a consonant as [h] is sometimes called aspiration, but in phonetics aspiration is the burst of air accompanying a plosive. The word comes from Latin bucca, meaning "cheek"; "debuccalization" is the loss of articulation in the mouth, leaving the place of articulation at the glottis.
Debuccalization is the second-to-last stage in the "opening" type of lenition, a consonant mutation involving the weakening of a consonant by progressive shifts in pronunciation.
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Most English-speakers in England and many speakers of American English debuccalize /t/ to a glottal stop [ʔ] in two environments: in word-final position before another consonant—
and before a syllabic [n̩] following /l/, /r/, /n/, or a vowel. Here the /t/ may also be nasally released.
In Cockney English, /t/ is replaced by [ʔ] between vowels, liquids, and nasals (notably in the word bottle), a process called t-glottalization.
The Bavarian dialect debuccalizes any p, t, k, b, d, g that occurs between two consonants (a situation often produced by vowel elision in the same dialect) and replaces them by [ʔ]. Thus Antn (ducks) and Andn (Andes) are both pronounced [anʔn], although speakers think it is the t or d they are pronouncing. With frequency depending on the location, hàn(d) ("are") occurs instead of the other (and altogether more general) Bavarian form sàn(d) (from the German seind, in contemporary German: sind).
In some varieties of Scottish English, /θ/ th shifted to [h], a process called th-debuccalization.
In Proto-Greek, /s/ shifted to [h] initially and between sonorants (vowels, liquids, and nasals).
Intervocalic /h/ was lost by the time of Ancient Greek, and vowels in hiatus were contracted in the Attic dialect.
Before a liquid or nasal, an /h/ was assimilated to the preceding vowel in Attic-Ionic and Doric and to the following nasal in Aeolic. The process is also described as loss of /h/ and subsequent lengthening of a vowel or consonant to keep the syllable the same length (compensatory lengthening).
In Sanskrit, /s/ becomes [h] (written ḥ in transliteration) when utterance-final. E.g. kā́mas ("erotic love") becomes kā́maḥ.
A number of Spanish dialects debuccalize /s/ at the end of a syllable to [h].
In Scottish and Irish Gaelic, s, t, f changed by lenition to [h], spelled sh, th and fh. Later the sound represented by fh was lost entirely.