Refers to the position of the glottis and the vibration of the vocal chords in forming consonant sounds. Consonant sounds can be either voiced or voiceless. To determine the glottal state for yourself simply place your hand on your throat as you pronounce the phoneme. Voiceless phonemes will not cause the throat to vibrate while voiceless phonemes will. The phoneme /t/ (as in tape) for example is voiceless while the phoneme /d/ (as in dog) is voiced.