Long live the glottal stop!

[pne]

I only just realised, after reading about pronunciation in Austro-Bavarian dialects, that I usually (i.e. when not specifically enunciating distinctly) pronounce a sequence of underlying nasal + homorganic stop + -en (shwa + alveolar(?) nasal) as nasal + glottal stop + same nasal—"Lampen" is [lam?m], "Enten" is [En?n], and "sinken" is [ziŋ?ŋ].

I never thought about the fact that there's a glottal stop in there (though I think I did realise that the -n in -en assimilates to the previous nasal in such cases and can surface as [m] or as [ŋ]).

On the other hand, if there is no intervening stop, then the sequence of nasal + -en turns into long nasal for me: "schwimmen" is [SvIm:], "rennen" is [rEn:], and "singen" is [ziŋ:].

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I do something like this in English but with the word-internal sequence /nt/ before any unstressed syllables. The sound has been described to me as a "glottal catch" rather than a full-blown stop, whatever that means. I know that to me, my winter and winner sound phonetically identical, but I can't ever remember having to clear up a confusion based on merging pairs like this, so perhaps the phonetic contrast is more salient than it appears.

[ubykhlives.livejournal.com]

Some Americans pronounce "Cantonese" as [kæn?ni:z] - although I suppose technically the glottal stop is coarticulated with an unreleased [t].

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, do you really have [siŋ?ŋ] and [siŋ:] rather than [ziŋ?ŋ] and [ziŋ:]? I wouldn't've expected that from a Northerner.

[pne.livejournal.com]

No, I have [z] -- thanks for the correction.

I wasn't thinking too carefully and was misled by the orthography (I wrote 's' and thought [z] because that's the pronunciation of word-initial s in my 'lect, so I didn't notice that my notation was wrong).

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

I pronounce the consonants in the same way even though I'm not sure I really distinguish long from short consonants. Probably not. The infinitive "rennen" and the imperative "renn" sound pretty much the same to me.

But I also use the glottal stop in other combinations, such as "hatten", "lagen", "Laken". Do you do that too?

I don't know how I distinguish the voiced and unvoiced variants of the stops. I'm pretty sure I distinguish, for example, "Lagen" and "Laken", but the closest transcription I can think of is [la:?n] (similar problem with "Enten" and "enden" [En?n]). How do you distinguish them?

[pne.livejournal.com]

I pronounce the consonants in the same way even though I'm not sure I really distinguish long from short consonants. Probably not. The infinitive "rennen" and the imperative "renn" sound pretty much the same to me.

I wasn't sure, either -- but it seems to me that my "renn!" is a bit shorter than my "rennen". Or my "ich sing" shorter than my "wir singen".

I could be deluding myself based on the orthography, though -- or the difference may be allophonic rather than phonemic.

But I also use the glottal stop in other combinations, such as "hatten", "lagen", "Laken". Do you do that too?

I think not -- I do have a syllabic nasal for the -en (at the same place of articulation as the preceding stop), but I think I don't have a glottal stop there but rather the real stop. However, I don't release the stop.

I think "Lagen" and "Laken" are [la:gŋ̩] and [la:kŋ̩] for me.

(similar problem with "Enten" and "enden" [En?n]). How do you distinguish them?

I think those are both [En?n] for me -- in "Wie werden die Enten enden?", the last two words sound the same.

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

"I think those are both [En?n] for me -- in "Wie werden die Enten enden?", the last two words sound the same."

Possibly for me "enden" is [Endn] but the d is not released and perhaps there's something like [?] simultaneous to the unreleased d. Still not sure what the difference is. But I said the words to my sister and she could tell which was which, so I'm sure there must be a difference for me.

[http://users.livejournal.com/bc_/]

Is it really a glottal stop? Can it be a nasal plosive?

[http://users.livejournal.com/bc_/]

...nasal release, after essentially an oral (bilabial, alveolar, velar) stop?

[pne.livejournal.com]

...possibly...

Nasal release of an oral stop - that's worth a thought, at least.

It might be one way of describing it.

[ubykhlives.livejournal.com]

Nasal release of co-articulated buccal and glottal stops? For your examples, that would give the phones [p?^m] [t?ⁿ] [k?^ŋ].

Goofy. Somehow, with such complex phonetic segments, I doubt they're phonemic... :)

[ubykhlives.livejournal.com]

I'd be very interested to find a language that does not have glottal stop as either a full consonant or a consonantal allophone (thus not counting glottal onset to vowel-initial words... although some languages, like Wichita and Kabardian, do contrast glottal and non-glottal onsets in this position).

[pne.livejournal.com]

some languages, like Wichita and Kabardian, do contrast glottal and non-glottal onsets in this position

As do Tongan and Maltese -- at any rate, they have an explicit letter for glottal stop (which I guess is a phoneme then) and they have words starting with glottal stop + vowel and with vowel alone (which presumably may not have a glottal stop preceding it).

Which would probably need quite a bit of practice from me if I were to learn to speak either properly (both are languages I'm vaguely interested in), since German has a glottal stop before all word-initial vowels (I think English has this to a lesser degree than German).

German even has glottal stop before syllable-initial vowels that derive from original word-initial vowel + prefix, e.g. ver?eisen "to ice up" -- though some people don't pronounce them always, especially in er?innern "to remind; (reflexive) to remember", which is "erinnern" for some (and sounds weird to me). Maybe because for them, the prefix+stem composition is not transparent. (Heck, it doesn't feel like a prefixed word to me, either, but I learned it with a glottal stop. I presume it comes from er- + inner + -en.)

[ubykhlives.livejournal.com]

As do Tongan and Maltese -- at any rate, they have an explicit letter for glottal stop (which I guess is a phoneme then) and they have words starting with glottal stop + vowel and with vowel alone (which presumably may not have a glottal stop preceding it).

Yep; same situation in Kabardian (Wichita wasn't a literary language, and was only ever taken down in its Americanist phonetic system).

Which would probably need quite a bit of practice from me if I were to learn to speak either properly (both are languages I'm vaguely interested in),

That's the same reason I chose Kabardian and Wichita as my examples. :)

since German has a glottal stop before all word-initial vowels (I think English has this to a lesser degree than German).

In my form of English at least, only vowel-initial words at the start of sentences take a glottal onset, and glottal onset in other places serves to emphasise the word (weakly, in some cases).