VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

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Vowels in Standard Austrian German
Figure 5.8: Spectrogram of the sequence /çgÇ/ from "Tiger" (tiger), speaker sp082, sentence
reading task. Left cursor positioned at vowel offset, right cursor at vowel onset.
Respective formant frequency values can be read from the panel below. Bottom
panel: waveform window, next panel from bottom: spectrogram window, left upper
panel: waveform zoom window, right upper panel: amplitude spectrum window.
These examples also show that VC and CV sequences are – from an acoustic point of
view – not simply mirror images of each other. A comparison of Figure 5.8 and Figure
5.9 demonstrates that the approach of the velar constriction starts shortly after vowel
midpoint in the case of /igÇ/ (Figure 5.8), whereas in the case of /gis/ "gieß" (to water:
IMP; Figure 5.9), convergence of F2 and F3, typical for velar constrictions or
occlusions, is only indicated at the very onset of F2, but at the onset of the vowel (first
positive zero crossing), the tongue is already in the position for the vowel, as can be
seen by the change in cavity affiliation of F2 and F3, which took place during the time
from the burst till vowel onset.
Figure 5.9: Spectrogram of the sequence /gis/ from "gieß" (to water: IMP), speaker sp082,
sentence reading task. Left cursor positioned at vowel onset, right cursor at vowel
offset. Respective formant frequency values can be read from the panel below.
Bottom panel: waveform window, next panel from bottom: spectrogram window,