Rhotics, generally believed to be phonetically heterogeneous - are usually classified into one group of sounds due to their similar phonological behaviour and their diachronic and synchronic alternation [13, 12, 31, and 1]. Previous research has shown considerable segmental variation, especially in the realisation of /r/ in German which lead some authors to conclude that a positive description of the German phoneme /r/ does not make sense [11].