VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

Sylvia Moosmüller
value is positive, the pair is additionally in italics. The asterisk indicates that no ttests
have been performed. Legend as in Table 4.12.
F3 L L Rs Rs Rus Rus. Ss Ss Sus Sus
Sp012 2411 2419 2128 2080 2099 2077 2381* 2235* 2249* 2300*
Sp180 2533 2454 2612 2460 2510 2541 2603 2654 2630 2693
Sp082 – – 2383 2455 2443 2479 2491* 2712* 2440 2520
Sp129 – – 2659 2504 2586 2460 2361 2319 2523 2407
Sp126 – – 2221 2214 2203 2258 2260 2149 2299 2299
Sp127 – – 2345 2330 2393 2291 2428 2371 2440 2324
Table 4.29: Mean F3 values of /u/ and /ï/ over all speaking tasks. Within each task, the value to
the left represents the vowel /u/, the value to the right the vowel /ï/. Statistically
significant differences within each pair (p < 0.05) are marked in bold. Where the tvalue
is negative, the pair is additionally in italics. The asterisk indicates that no ttests
have been performed. Legend as in Table 4.12.
It can be seen that an opposition in a stressed position is only maintained in the most
formal speaking tasks of reading logatomes and sentences, predominately for F1. F2
produces a very inconsistent picture, often with reversed values (higher values for the
[+constricted] vowel), especially in unstressed positions. Only one speaker (sp129)
maintains an opposition for F3 over all speaking tasks (except in stressed positions in
spontaneous speech). Given the reversed values for F2 of this speaker in unstressed
positions in the sentence reading task, the corresponding F3 values rather point to a
reduction of the degree of lip protrusion (both F2 and F3 are higher for /u/ than for /ï/)
than to a difference in constriction degree. The same holds for speaker sp126, for the
stressed position in spontaneous speech. In all other cases, no statistically significant
differences were obtained for F3. Together with the results obtained for F2 and F1, it
has to be concluded that neutralization of the velar vowels is even more advanced than
for the pre-palatal vowels.
This assumption is corroborated by the fact that even in the logatome reading task,
speaker sp012 clearly realizes some /ï/ vowels as /u/. The items affected are: “kugge”,
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