Speaker Specific Strategies of Voicing, Devoicing and Glottalisation in German Stops

This paper reports the results from an instrumental investigation into speaker specific strategies of stop voicing, devoicing and glottalisation in German. Laryngograph recordings were taken from eight German speakers producing /p, t, k/ and /b, d, ɡ/ preceded by vowels, nasals or /l/ and followed by nasals or /l/. Four of the subjects produced glottalised stops in some phonetic environments, that is, the stop closure was achieved through a constriction of the glottis, and these subjects also showed spontaneous voicing in some of the fortis stops. The other four subjects showed opposing tendencies, that is, they did not produce any glottalized stops and showed passive devoicing in some of the lenis stops. The observed differences may be associated with speaker-specific strategies of velum control and subsequent effects on aerodynamic conditions in stop production.