VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

Sylvia Moosmüller
Figure 5.16: Spectrogram of the sequence /'bAkN1/ from "backen" (to bake), speaker sp127,
sentence reading task. Left cursor positioned during the burst of the bilabial
plosive, right cursor at vowel onset of /A/. 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.
The left cursor in the spectrogram window is positioned in the burst of /b/, the right
cursor at vowel onset (1 st positive zero crossing). It can be seen from spectrogram
inspection that F2 falls from release until vowel onset, but at vowel onset, F2 does not
change any more until about vowel midpoint. F2 then changes again in preparation of
the velar closure. This falling pattern of F2 probably indicates that the tongue body is
not yet in position at plosive release. Therefore, as concerns the movement of F2, two
/CA/ – patterns, where C is a bilabial plosive, can be observed: either a falling or a flat
pattern. In each case, F2 has its final position at vowel onset.
The production of an alveolar closure is facilitated if the tongue body is placed in
a somewhat fronted position and if the mandible is raised (Stevens 1999: 324). When
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