VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

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Sylvia Moosmüller Whatever the definition of coarticulation, the unifying bond of all views is the assumption of a "unit" or "canonical segment" which is modified when executed (Farne- tani 1990: 94). "To recapitulate: the concept of coarticulation entails the hypotheses that at some level speakers make use of a representation in terms of abstract phonological segments, and that there are regular principles governing the articulatory integration of those segments in speech." (Kühnert & Nolan 1999: 9) Coarticulation, is the "process bridging the invariant and discrete units of representation to articulation and acoustics." (Farnetani & Recasens 1999: 31) Attributing coarticulation to a mere processual character neglects, however, the physical and physiological aspects of coarticulation put forward by Kühnert and Nolan (1999): "..., a single vocal tract has to alter its shape to satisfy the requirements of all the sounds in a sequence. The vocal tract is governed by the laws of physics and the constraints of physiology, but (...) it is producing its communicative artefact in 'real time'. It cannot move instantaneously from one target configuration to the next." (Kühnert & Nolan 1999: 8f). Therefore, it is those "regular principles" (Kühnert & Nolan 1999: 9) which need further clarification and division. In their investigation of /sS/ sequencies, Holst & Nolan (1995) assume a phonological process of assimilation to account for compensatory lengthening in [S], when no spectral characteristics of [s] are visible anymore, i.e. when total assimilation has taken place. Nolan et al. (1996) repeated this investigation applying articulatory methods to account for the critique put forward by Browman (1995). The results show that one speaker applied a phonological assimilation rule, while the other speaker behaved in a way which suggests a deletion of the /s/. However, they could, in both cases, find no evidence of an [s] gesture. The authors conclude: "Articulatory Phonology already goes impressively far towards accounting for the phenomena of connected speech by providing an implementable description of the process of articulatory blending. It is fully acknowledged by the authors here and in Holst and Nolan (1995) that very many observed outputs of segmental accommodation are appropriately described in gestural terms, that is, as mechanical consequences of the dynamics of the articulators. It would then be extremely elegant and economical if AP were able to go the whole way, and account for all accommodatory phenomena, making Cognitive Phonology redundant, at least in the area of connected speech processes. Elegance and economy are not enough, however, and the scope of AP must be tested by seeking phenomena it cannot 134
135 Vowels in Standard Austrian German handle. Such a phenomenon appears to be the case of [s] to [S], if the resultant fricative is homogeneously [S]-like, yet longer than a singleton [S]." (Nolan et al. 1996: 135f) Consequently, phonological processes and coarticulation have to be kept apart, accounting for different phenomena. Such a view is held by Wood (1996, 1997), who offers a definition, which teases the two phenomena apart: "... that assimilation and coarticulation are the consequences of two distinct processes. Coarticulation is the general local interweaving of articulator gestures that occurs between instantiations of all phonemes, assimilated or not, ensuring smooth motor activity. Assimilation is an arbitrary and conventional reorganization of the timing of articulator gestures of specific phonemes in defined situations." (Wood 1997: 212) This view restricts coarticulation to the most necessary interaction of neighbouring segments, transsegmental influences are part of assimilation. This rather narrow but convincing view on coarticulation is based on Wood's observations that conflicting demands on an articulator are sequenced rather than blended. Gesture queueing of conflicting gestures, moreover, needs preplanning. Therefore coarticulation is at least partly preplanned in his conceptualization. From his definition follows that many of the investigations on coarticulation belong in fact to levels other than coarticulation, and, more important, that assimilation is processed before coarticulation. Wood (1996, 1997) offers a definition to separate phonology (assimilation) from phonetics (coarticulation), yet, the crucial question is not only which processes have to be attributed to phonology and which phenomena belong to the domain of phonetics, but, moreover, which phenomena, on the phonetic level, have to be conceptualized as processes and which phenomena have to be attributed to the fact that articulators have to move from one phonetic output to the next. This adds a further step to the path from phoneme to phonetic output: phonetic processes, which account for anticipatory articulation that does not touch the phonology of a language. In the same way as phonological processes, phonetic processes are language specific and add to language specific differences of the same phenomenon. To give an example: in Standard Austrian German, as has been shown, lip protrusion starts with plosive release and takes some time until it is accomplished. However, it cannot be traced in the transconsonantal vowel. In French,
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VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN
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Vowels in Standard Austrian German
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1. Introduction: Setting the Theore
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3 Vowels in Standard Austrian Germa
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11 Vowels in Standard Austrian Germ
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Hz 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 N
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� Speaker sp127: Student, male, 2
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4. Vowel inventory and features 51
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Spontaneous speech Long vowel + len
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Spontaneous speech Long vowel + len
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Height 0 10 20 30 40 u i o ö ü e
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Vowel category Variability Coeffici
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185 Vowels in Standard Austrian Ger
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Therefore, it can be observed that
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c(xmin, xmax) 0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0
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Variability coefficient 40,000 35,0
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6.6.3.4. The vowel /E/ 215 Vowels i
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6.6.3.6. The vowel /u/ 217 Vowels i
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z-score 5,00 4,00 3,00 2,00 1,00 0,
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Appendix 269 Vowels in Standard Aus
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