VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

Sylvia Moosmüller
NoP stressed unstressed t p stressed unstressed t p
Sp180 18 12 13.71 0.00 14 10 8.19 0.00
Sp129 15 8 16.66 0.00 14 10 10.01 0.00
Sp082 18 11 16.96 0.00 17 11 7.68 0.00
Sp012 11 6 16.92 0.00 7 5 4.85 0.00
Sp126 13 7 15.69 0.00 12 7 9.32 0.00
Sp127 14 7 20.86 0.00 11 6 11.89 0.00
Table 6.8: Mean number of periods measured in stressed and unstressed positions, t-values
and level of significance. The four columns to the left refer to the sentence reading
task, the 4 columns to the right to spontaneous speech.
Table 6.8 shows that, for each speaker and within each speaking task, the vowels in
unstressed positions are significantly shorter than the vowels in stressed positions. As
concerns the two speaking tasks (sentence reading task and spontaneous speech), a
comparison of the mean values also indicates a difference in the direction, and that the
number of periods is smaller in spontaneous speech. However, statistically significant
results could only be obtained for speakers sp012, sp127, sp129, and sp180. For speaker
sp126 and speaker sp082, the differences did not prove to be statistically significant,
both for the comparison of stressed and unstressed position.
These results strongly suggest that changes in vowel quality are a result of
durational truncation. Tables 6.9 to 6.11 give the correlation coefficient of NoP and F1,
F2, or F3.
r: NoP/F1 Sp180 Sp129 Sp082 Sp012 Sp126 Sp127
/i/ -0.18 -0.40 -0.16 -0.06 -0.15 -0.47
/ç/ -0.09 0.09 -0.27 -0.36 0.08 -0.01
/y/ -0.40 -0.97 -0.86 -0.26 -0.65 -0.95
/Y/ 0.09 -0.21 0.39 -0.52 -0.30 -0.69
/e/ 0.40 -0.44 0.43 -0.27 -0.39 -0.06
/E/ 0.22 -0.12 0.26 0.07 0.19 -0.21
/ë/ 0.34 -0.22 0.50 -0.26 0.30 0.44
/ê/ 0.71 -0.52 -0.15 0.57 -0.02 -0.39
/u/ -0.18 -0.22 -0.60 0.18 -0.11 -0.64
/ï/ -0.36 -0.22 0.36 -0.02 0.21 0.24
/o/ 0.16 -0.18 0.34 0.36 0.20 0.16
/O/ -0.01 0.18 -0.08 -0.06 0.05 -0.10
200