VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

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Vowels in Standard Austrian German
As a result, for all persons, but especially for the female speakers, a strong
negative correlation could be observed between VOT duration and F2 value at vowel
onset: the longer the VOT duration, the lower the value of F2 at vowel onset (see Figure
5.1).
ms
100
60
VOT
20
-20
250 500 750 1000
F2 at frame 1
1250 1500 1750
Figure 5.1: VOT vs. F2 at vowel onset for CV sequences, where C is an alveolar plosive and V
a back, protruded vowel /u, o/. Reddish lines: female speakers, bluish lines: male
speakers.
Table 5.1. gives the PEARSON's correlation coefficient r for all speakers:
Speaker sp082 sp129 sp180 sp012 sp126 sp127
r -0.905 -0.735 -0.83 -0.623 -0.788 -0.456
Table 5.1: Correlation coefficient r for VOT/F2 at vowel onset, broken for all speakers,
stressed vowels /u, o/ from the sentence reading task. Statistically significant
results (p < 0.05) are in bold.
It can be seen from Table 5.1 that, with the exception of speaker sp127, all speakers
expose a high, statistically significant negative correlation between the duration of VOT
and the value of F2 at vowel onset. This holds especially for the female speakers
(sp082, sp129 and sp180), although their overall mean for VOT of fortis plosives does
not differ from the male speakers (mean duration of 61.9 ms for the male speakers, 63.5
ms for the female speakers). Therefore, in Standard Austrian German, lip protrusion
Hz