VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

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Vowels in Standard Austrian German
The first item 125 (136 ms) consists of a nasalized vowel, the quality of which is not
easily definable. The whole sequence is nasalized. The first part is additionally
articulated with breathy voice. There are also some discontinuities in the contour of the
second formant, which might point to some coupling with the pharynx (Stevens 2003)
and adds to the undefinability of the output.
The second item (with 173 ms) adds the plosive, which is affricated. The formant
structure is clear and exposes some movement over time.
In the third item (with 252 ms) the personal pronoun /n/ “n” (I) is articulated. The
sequence nasal consonant + plosive is fully voiced, i.e. the closure phase of the plosive
is voiced as well, and the plosive is again affricated. The formant structure reveals that
two vowels are articulated in sequence. The intervocalic nasal consonant is still missing.
In the spectrogram of the fourth item (with 313 ms), an indication of the inter-
vocalic nasal consonant can be found. The initial nasal consonant, denoting the personal
pronoun, is articulated as well, followed by a fortis plosive, which is voiced and
affricated. Therefore, it is the last item of the fourth round, where it can be assumed that
the speaker is already tired after approximately 90 minutes of recording, which exposes
the most precise articulation, with each phoneme having an output representation.
It are these last two items which might occur in spontaneous speech as well. In
spontaneous speech, the last syllable of “ntene” might be absorbed by the preceding
vowel, supplying it with nasalization and resulting in [n1tE$] (see Figure 6.5).
125 All items expose a more or less strong frication at the end, which points to the start of the
subsequent fricative /s/ of “centu” (hundred).