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The present article illustrates that the specific articulatory and aerodynamic requirements for voiced but not voiceless alveolar or dental stops can cause tongue tip retraction and tongue mid lowering and thus retroflexion of front coronals. This retroflexion is shown to have occurred diachronically in the three typologically unrelated languages Dhao (Malayo-Polynesian), Thulung (Sino-Tibetan), and Afar (East-Cushitic). In addition to the diachronic cases, we provide synchronic data for retroflexion from an articulatory study with four speakers of German, a language usually described as having alveolar stops. With these combined data we supply evidence that voiced retroflex stops (as the only retroflex segments in a language) did not necessarily emerge from implosives, as argued by Haudricourt (1950), Greenberg (1970), Bhat (1973), and Ohala (1983). Instead, we propose that the voiced front coronal plosive /d/ is generally articulated in a way that favours retroflexion, that is, with a smaller and more retracted place of articulation and a lower tongue and jaw position than /t/.
Articulatory token-to-token variability not only depends on linguistic aspects like the phoneme inventory of a given language but also on speaker specific morphological and motor constraints. As has been noted previously (Perkell (1997), Mooshammer et al. (2004)) , speakers with coronally high "domeshaped" palates exhibit more articulatory variability than speakers with coronally low "flat" palates. One explanation for that is based on perception oriented control by the speaker. The influence of articulatory variation on the cross sectional area and consequently on the acoustics should be greater for flat palates than for domeshaped ones. This should force speakers with flat palates to place their tongue very precisely whereas speakers with domeshaped palates might tolerate a greater variability. A second explanation could be a greater amount of lateral linguo-palatal contact for flat palates holding the tongue in position. In this study both hypotheses were tested.
Das Wogeo ist eine austronesische Sprache, die von etwa 1500 Menschen auf den Inseln Vokeo […] und Koil […] gesprochen wird. Da es sich beim Wogeo um eine bislang größtenteils unbeschriebene Sprache handelt, sind zum Verständnis der Ausführungen im Hauptteil dieser Arbeit sowie zur allgemeinen Orientierung einige einleitende Erklärungen nötig. Diese sind von unterschiedlicher Art: Zunächst wird die natürliche Umgebung der beiden Inseln, auf denen die Sprache gesprochen wird, kurz dargestellt. Dann werden die für das Verständnis der soziolinguistischen Lage der Sprache relevanten Aspekte beleuchtet. Zur Orientierung folgt ein kurzer Abriß der Position des Wogeo innerhalb der austronesischen Sprachfamilie. Schließlich leitet eine Darstellung des bisherigen Forschungsstandes über das Wogeo zum Hauptteil der Arbeit über.