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Glottal marking of vowel-initial German words by glottalization and glottal stop insertion were investigated in dependence on speech rate, word type (content vs. function words), word accent, phrasal position and the following vowel. The analysed material consisted of speeches of Konrad Adenauer, Thomas Mann and Richard von Weizsäcker. The investigation shows that not only the left boundary of accented syllables (including phrasal stress boundary) and lexical words favour glottal stops/glottalization, but also that the segmental level appears to have a strong impact on these insertion processes. Specifically, the results show that low vowels in contrast to non-low ones favour glottal stops/glottalization even before non-accented syllables and functional words.
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/.