VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

Sylvia Moosmüller
Although Figure 7.2 suggests significant differences between the three speakers by
means of F3, these differences cannot withstand a statistical analysis. Neither a two-
tailed t-test nor the z-deviation renders differences for F3 between sp126 and sp127.
One could argue that a visual comparison of the distributions might suffice to
keep the speakers apart. However, in a cross-check comparison of one and the same
speaker in different speaking tasks, the distribution of formants need not result in a
satisfying overlap either. Figure 7.3 shows a density plot of all vowels /ç/ from “nicht”
(not) of one speaker (sp126) in the sentence reading task and in spontaneous speech:
c(xmin, xmax)
0.000 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007
1500 2000 2500 3000 3500
Figure 7.3: Density plot of F2 and F3 of the vowel /ç/ from “nicht” (not), sentence reading task
(red) and spontaneous speech (black), n = 18.
Index
A visual inspection would render differences for F3. Calculated z-scores, however,
correctly prove accordance for the /ç/ of spontaneous speech with the /ç/ of the sentence
reading task with respect to both F2 and F3.
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