VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

Sylvia Moosmüller
“German was characterized by having the lowest F2T 118 values and one of the smallest
undershoot values of the back vowel in the coronal contexts. Regarding Chinese and French,
while Chinese had a more front target for /u/ than French, the vowel /u/ of French was
undershot more than that of Chinese in coronal contexts.” (Oh 2002: 244)
From a subsequent study on second language acquisition, Oh (2002) concludes that
these language-specific differences have to be learned and interprets them within the
framework of Keating’s model:
“These results are in accord with the Keating’s (1985) conception of the language-specific
phonetic component of grammar which can be hypothesized that a speaker must learn all
phonetic details that are specific to a target language.” (Oh 2002: 252)
With the results presented by Fleming (2001) and Oh (2002), a biomechanical
explanation for the fronting of back rounded vowels can be excluded, therefore, no
undershoot mechanism is at work. Oh (2002) interprets F2 displacement as a language-
specific coarticulatory process which has to be learned. Fleming (2001), on the other
hand, sees fronting as a parallel phonetic and phonological phenomenon and analyzes it
within the framework of minimization of cost functions. As concerns the language-
specific differences, he concludes:
“this variation can be analysed in terms of differences in constraint weights, e.g. English
assigns IDENT(V) a low weight compared to German.” (Fleming 2001: 23)
In the sentence reading condition, Standard Austrian German shows no F2
displacement 119 of the vowel midpoint of the stressed back rounded vowels /u, ï, o/
following an alveolar plosive. However, statistically significant differences of F2
displacement caused by the preceding alveolar plosive can be found for the vowel /O/.
Broken down for speakers, every speaker exposes a higher F2 value at vowel midpoint
when the preceding plosive is alveolar, and for all speakers, the differences are
statistically significant (p < 0.05). Table 6.1 gives the mean vowel midpoint values of
the vowel /O/ for each speaker:
118 F2T = F2 target value
119 It has to be noted that fronting is the most plausible explanation for a higher F2 of back
rounded vowels in an alveolar context. However, less lip protrusion, a raised larynx, or an
increase of constrinction degree might, in the same way, result in a higher F2.
180