VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...
VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...
VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...
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4. Vowel inventory and features<br />
51<br />
Vowels in Standard Austrian German<br />
Descriptions of the vowel inventory (without diphthongs) of Standard German set the<br />
number of vowels at between 17 (Wiese 1996), 16 (Jørgensen 1969, Wurzel 1970,<br />
UPSID, see Simpson 1998, 1999, Kohler 1999), 15 (Moulton 1962, Sendlmeier 1985,<br />
Iivonen 1987a, b), 14 (Heike 1961 54 , Rausch 1972) and 8 vowels (Becker 1998). The<br />
reason for this inconsistency in range lies in the different views of the status of the<br />
schwa and long /E:/. Jørgensen (1969), Kohler (1999) and UPSID assume a mid-central<br />
schwa. Wiese (1996) additionally assumes a phonemic status for /Ç/, the vowel resulting<br />
from r-vocalization. The descriptions with more than 15 vowels all include the long<br />
/E:/ 55 in their analysis. Moulton (1962) rejects the long /E:/, but includes a mid-central<br />
schwa. Iivonen (1987a) includes the long /E:/, but assumes no mid-central schwa. In his<br />
analysis of Standard German, /E:/ nearly merges with /E/. In Northern German, however,<br />
/E:/ merges with /e/ (Heike 1961, Jørgensen 1969, Kloeke 1982). All analyses of<br />
Standard German assume two a-vowels, a long and a short one. Becker (1998) assumes<br />
only 8 vowels; these can, however, appear as long or as short vowels, according to their<br />
position in the syllabic structure. The open vowels, according to his analysis, differ with<br />
respect to duration, the closed and mid vowels with respect to centralization;<br />
consequently, the short /e/ and /ä/ 56 merge.<br />
54<br />
Heike (1961) regards the division of sounds into “vowels” and “consonants” as<br />
inadequate, and prefers to distinguish “Kernphoneme” (nucleus phonemes) and<br />
“Satellitenphoneme” (satellite phonemes).<br />
55<br />
see Becker (1998) for a thorough overview of the analytical status and historical<br />
development of long /E:/.<br />
56<br />
Becker (1998) assumes a different quality for short and long /E/ and therefore adopts the<br />
symbol /ä(:)/ for the long vowel (1998: 23). Nevertheless, this qualitatively different<br />
vowel merges with the short /e/ (1998: 163).