Laryngeal contrasts and problematic representations This paper examines some aspects of expressing laryngeal activity in current phonological theory. First, a bird's- eye view survey is given of the development of phonological features distinguishing types of laryngeal activities involved in human speech. In the second half of the paper, Government Phonology, especially its theory of segmental make-up, is confronted with the minimum number of laryngeal distinctions found empirically necessary in the previous section and its own claims of the status of sound compo- nents. It will turn out that the way out of the first problem leads GP into even deeper trouble. A solution is then proposed to partly repair the framework. This last section of the paper is rather speculative awaiting later corroboration or refutation.