VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

Sylvia Moosmüller
and back cavity. Since lip protrusion is about the same for both vowels, the larynx
should be lowered by roughly the same degree as well, or, to a lesser degree by the
unconstricted vowel. These articulatory configurations lead to a higher F1, a lower F2,
and an equal or higher F3 for unconstricted /ê/ as compared to its constricted cognate
/ë/ (see Figure 4.21)
Figure 4.21: Average spectrum of the vowel /ê/ taken from the logatome “pöbbe”, speaker
sp012.
Tables 4.24 – 4.26 give the statistical results of the pair-wise comparisons.
Unfortunately, especially in spontaneous speech, not enough items were produced to
make a statistical comparison meaningful. Therefore, in the same way as for the vowel
pair /y/ – /Y/, mean values, if available, are presented and supplied with an asterisk in
order to indicate that no statistical analysis could be performed for this pair.
F1 L L Rs Rs Rus Rus. Ss Ss Sus Sus
Sp012 324 436 347 439 354* 493* 353* 441* – –
Sp180 351 452 394 430 – 364* 387* – – –
Sp082 – – 423 502 – – 424* – – –
Sp129 – – 391 486 – 455* 421* 443* 450* 432*
Sp126 – – 342 393 320* – – 406* – –
Sp127 – – 342 436 354* 476* 326* – – –
Table 4.24: Mean F1 values of /ë/ and /ê/ over all speaking tasks. Within each task, the value
to the left represents the vowel /ë/, the value to the right the vowel /ê/. Statistically
significant differences within each pair (p < 0.05) are marked in bold. Where the tvalue
is positive, the pair is additionally in italics. The asterisk indicates that no ttests
have been performed. Legend as in Table 4.12.
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