VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

6.6.3.6. The vowel /u/
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Vowels in Standard Austrian German
Four speakers realized sufficient items in spontaneous speech. Theoretically, F1 and F2
should raise with decreasing stress, whereas F3 should lower, so that the following
picture emerges:
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 6.17 presents the results of the statistical analysis for spontaneous speech:
F3
F2
F1
sp180 sp012 sp126 sp127
Figure 6.17: Statistically significant changes of F1, F2, and F3 (p < 0.05) of the vowel /u/ in
dependence on stress, spontaneous speech. 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.
Figure 6.17 demonstrates that speaker sp180 does not distinguish primary stress from
secondary stress, whereas speaker sp012 does not distinguish primary stress and
unstressed positions. Most interestingly, sp012 shows a low F2 only for secondary
stress, but not for primary stress. Furthermore, it is noticeable that both speaker sp126