Regions of silence in the speech stream are commonly produced by pressing the vocal folds together and by spreading the vocal folds apart. Given that irregular phonation normally arises from both of these actions, it is proposed that there is a preferred role for irregular phonation in phonological systems – that of a cue to silence whether that silence is related to a segmental contrast or a prosodic structure and whether or not that silence is actually fully achieved. This preferred role for irregular phonation as a meaningful sound is grounded in the physical reality of managing vocal fold vibration.