VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

Sylvia Moosmüller
fortis plosive (see Figure 4.2), but not for the group’s long vowel + fortis plosive and
short vowel + lenis plosive. No statistically significant differences in duration were
observed for the group’s long vowel + lenis plosive and short vowel + fortis plosive.
These results corroborate the hypotheses of Bannert (1977) and Ronneberger-Sibold
(1999). The other pair lacks isochrony, because long vowel + fortis plosive and short
vowel + lenis plosive are not possible combinations in Central Bavarian.
short vowel + lenis
long vowel + fortis
short vowel + fortis
long vowel + lenis
60,28
98,17
126,35
152,29
118,03
60
116,17
99,56
48,06
21,40
6,04
20,17
29,52
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
ms
vowel
closure
Figure 4.2: Duration of vowel, closure of the plosive and VOT of 54 bisyllabics, p182,
sentence reading task.
In spontaneous speech, though, no isochrony can be observed. Long vowel + lenis
plosive and short vowel + fortis plosive durations differ significantly and, most
interestingly, the combination short vowel + fortis is longer than the combination long
vowel + lenis plosive (see Table 4.1).
VOT