VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

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Vowels in Standard Austrian German
increasing the contact area between tongue and palate at an earlier point in time. By
applying the process of palatalization, coarticulation (e.g. sharp transitions) is smoothed
away.
5.3.2. The vowel /A/
The vowel /A/ is usually attributed less coarticulatory resistance than the vowel /i/, i.e. is
affected to a larger extent by its surroundings than a palatal vowel (see e.g. Farnetani &
Recasens 1993). As has been stated in Chapter 4, in Standard Austrian German /A/ is
articulated as a back vowel, which means that the tongue body is displaced back and
produces a constriction in the pharynx considerably above the larynx 108 and that the
tongue tip is displaced back from the inner surfaces of the lower incisors (Stevens 1999:
274). This articulatory configuration results in a low second formant frequency.
Preceded by a bilabial plosive, tongue body configuration can be accomplished at
the point of release, i.e. hardly any transition would be visible for F2. This is enforced
by the fact that F2, as back cavity resonance, is hardly affected by changes in the front
cavity (Manuel & Stevens 1995 and Stevens 1999). Therefore, the increase of the lip
area is hardly visible in the movement of F2, but rather appears in the steep and rapid
rise of F1.
However, quite often, a clear falling F2 pattern could be observed in /bA/ se-
quences. Such an example is given in Figure 5.16 which shows the spectrogram of the
word [b5AkN1] "backen" (to bake).
108 As compared to the front vowel /a/, whose constriction location is nearer to the larynx,
resulting, consequently, in a higher F2.