VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

Sylvia Moosmüller
“nejemi” to one syllable [nE$m], articulating all three syllables would have easily
compensated for the missing 60 ms. Providing an unstressed sequence with the same
articulatory accuracy is, however, in contrast to the principle of backgrounding and
foregrounding. Therefore, an exact timing is of secondary relevance. The primary
concern in the rhythm of speech is to properly background unstressed sequences in
order to contrast them with the stressed positions. How much time is required for the
accomplishment of this activity, depends on the content that has to be conveyed. And
the syntax and semantics of a language do not necessarily consider that a required
amount of unstressed syllables is available in order to fit an exact timing, or, to put it
another way, a speaker of a language plans the sequences of words he or she wants to
utter and the processes that have to be applied, but the speaker does not search for
another word with, e.g., more consonant clusters in order to arrive at an exact timing.
Therefore, speaking is different from walking, dancing, playing an instrument, or
even poetic rhythm, in that it is to a larger extent a social activity. Speakers want or
have to convey in some way or other more and less important units 151 of speech, and
they convey these units in a graded way of foregrounding or backgrounding them. In an
utterance, not only important and non-important information exists, but also further
levels of importance, new information, redundant information, repetitions, etc.
Therefore, in an analysis of the rhythm of speech, dichotomous conceptualizations have
to be given up. Moreover, it has to be questioned whether speaking is really ruled by
timing or whether there is some sort of interaction between what a speaker wants to say,
the speech situation 152 he or she is in, and the time he or she computes or has at his or
her disposal for the planned utterance. Therefore, the gradings of foregroundings and
backgroundings might differ considerably in dependence of diverse external factors.
151
Unit has a broad meaning here and can be new or old information, a phrase, a word, a
syllable, or a phoneme.
152
For example, in an oral exam situation, a speaker might exhibit a different rhythmic
patterning than in an oral presentation, although the amount of time they have at their
disposal might be the same.
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