VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

6.6.3.4. The vowel /E/
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Vowels in Standard Austrian German
It has already been mentioned in 6.6.2 that for the vowels /E/ and /O/, F1 is lowered in
the unstressed position as compared to the stressed position. This means that with
respect to the degree of lip opening, these two vowels behave in the same way as the
vowel /A/, whereas with respect to constriction degree and constriction length, they go
with their respective [+ constricted] cognate. The stress-dependent change to be
expected should look as follows:
F1 primary stress > F1 secondary stress > F1 unstressed
F2 primary stress > F2 secondary stress > F2 unstressed
F3 primary stress > F3 secondary stress > F3 unstressed
Figure 6.16 summarizes the results for the sentence reading task:
F3
F2
F1
sp180 sp129 sp082 sp012 sp126 sp127
Figure 6.16: Statistically significant changes of F1, F2, and F3 (p < 0.05) of the vowel /E/ in
dependence on stress, sentence reading task. Within each column denoting the
speakers, the leftmost crossbar denotes the relative formant frequency position of
primary stressed vowels, the middle crossbar the one of secondary stressed vowels
and the rightmost crossbar the one of unstressed vowels.