VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

Sylvia Moosmüller
on the other hand, lip protrusion could be observed in the transconsonantal vowel (Roy
et al 2003), Daniloff & Moll could observe lip protrusion four segments before the
influencing vowel. In the same vein as Wood's definition, it is suggested here that in
Standard Austrian German, lip protrusion restricted to the interaction with the
neighbouring segment, is a coarticulatory phenomenon, whereas anticipatory lip
protrusion has rather to be conceptualized as a phonetic process which might or might
not occur (see speaker specific differences in Gay & Lubker 1981). The observation of
two stages in the production of lip protrusion or nasalization (Perkell & Matthies 1992,
Benguerel et al. 1977, Al-Bamerni & Bladon 1982) further supports this argumentation:
step 1 can be conceptualized as a phonetic process, step 2 - the necessary part - is
coarticulation. Therefore, the path from phoneme to phonetic output, mediated by
"regular principles", consists of phonological processes, phonetic processes and
coarticulation as the last step which connects the phonemes formed by phonological or
phonetic processes. The same phenomenon can, therefore, be either a phonological
process, a phonetic process or coarticulation. To which level a given observation
belongs, depends on the phonology and phonetics of a language and is, therefore,
language specific. Sociolinguistic aspects might further differentiate varieties or
speakers.
Before testing the systematicity of coarticulatory phenomena, a further aspect in
the articulatory - acoustic relationship has to be examined.
5.2. Articulatory vs. acoustic observations
Although there are many acoustic studies on coarticulation in a broad sense,
coarticulation is, as the term suggests, the domain of articulatory phonetics. Tabain
(2001), in her review of Hardcastle and Hewlett's (1999) reader on coarticulation, states:
"At first I was surprised at the inclusion of this chapter [on acoustic analysis], since I
normally think of coarticulation as an articulatory phenomenon." (Tabain 2001)
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