VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

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Vowels in Standard Austrian German
Since the vowel /A/ in “Paar” received highest prominence by all speakers, it
appears justified to look at the deviation of the formant frequencies of the other vowels
from the vowel /A/ in “Paar”. Figure 6.22 presents the results on F1:
z-score
7,00
6,00
5,00
4,00
3,00
2,00
1,00
0,00
Stadt Deutschland niedergelassen hatte das
Sp180 3,68 4,29 1,47 2,12 4,03
Sp129 3,66 5,12 0,34 4,64
Sp082 1,31 2,03 0,98 1,70 3,42
Sp012 2,10 4,52 2,59 2,16 6,07
Sp126 2,02 3,73 2,37 1,68 3,93
Sp127 1,38 4,98 1,80 1,16 4,81
Figure 6.22: Z-score of F1 of the vowels /A/ from the vowel /A/ in “Paar” (couple). With z ≥ 1.5
no correspondence of the respective formant is given any more. Sp = speaker,
sentence reading task.
According to Figure 6.22, all speakers confirm in “das” deviating most and substantially
from “Paar”, i.e. F1 is substantially lower in “das”. For the rest of the vowels, speaker-
specific differences can be observed. The /A/ in “Deutschland” receives a very low F1 as
well, and is, in principle, as unstressed as “das”. Only speaker sp082 and speaker sp012
differentiate between “das” and “Deutschland”. Most interestingly, F1 of “hatte”
deviates to a much lesser degree than expected. Four speakers sp082, sp012, sp126,
sp127) assign approximately the same degree of lip aperture to the vowel /A/ in “hatte”
as to the vowel /A/ in “Stadt”, even though the two vowels in “Paar” and in “hatte” are
not separated by an unstressed syllable. However, the relatively higher F1 in “hatte” is
not to be interpreted as a provoked stress clash, but rather as an assimilation; since it is