VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

Sylvia Moosmüller
nence should not be neglected either. Fant et al. (2000b), in their analysis of prominence
in Swedish, name six parameters responsible for prominence in the following order of
relevance: duration, fundamental frequency, overall intensity, overall intensity with a
high-frequency pre-emphasis, voice source, and spectral modifications of consonants
and vowels. They found out that a rise of F1 and a lowering of F2 lead to higher
perceived prominence for the vowel /a/. The high vowels, on the other hand, attained a
higher Rs 146 by tightening the degree of constriction. How, and to what extent, relative
prominence is realized in actual speech depends on the individual speakers (Fant et al.
2002). I.e. speaker-specific differences are to be expected in the realization of
prominence, as exemplified in Figure 6.18.
z-score
4,00
3,50
3,00
2,50
2,00
1,50
1,00
0,50
0,00
Sp180 Sp129 Sp082 Sp012 Sp126 Sp127
F1 0,06 3,37 0,63 0,20 0,14 1,33
F2 0,47 1,55 2,28 0,39 1,86 0,45
F3 0,94 0,21 2,12 1,21 1,75 0,17
Figure 6.18: Z-deviation F1, F2, and F3 of the vowel /i/ from “liebe” (dear: ADJ) from the
vowel /i/ from “Liebe” (love: N), sentence reading task. For each speaker, n = 4.
With z ≥ 1.5 no correspondence of the respective formant is given any more. The
values have been root squared to facilitate reading. Sp = speaker.
146 Rs is a continuous interval scale from 0 to 30 indicating perceived prominence. In
perception tests conducted by Fant et al. 2000a, content words received an average Rs of
18.6, function words an average Rs of 11.
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