VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

Sylvia Moosmüller
Speaker sp180 NoP V “tense” NoP V “lax” n t p
Logatome reading task 27 14 313 22.58 0.00
Sentence reading task stressed 22 15 341 9.19 0.00
Spontaneous speech stressed 16 13 185 3.32 0.00
Sentence reading task unstressed 11 12 446 -2.82 0.00
Spontaneous speech unstressed 9 10 349 -1.23 0.11
Table 4.5: Mean number of periods for tense and lax vowels, and statistical results for 3
speaking tasks and 2 prosodic positions, speaker sp180.
Speaker sp012 NoP V “tense” NoP V “lax” n t p
Logatome reading task 18 9 273 36.18 0.00
Sentence reading task stressed 14 8 375 12.20 0.00
Spontaneous speech stressed 9 6 83 3.69 0.00
Sentence reading task unstressed 6 6 441 -3.52 0.00
Spontaneous speech unstressed 5 5 96 -0.17 0.43
Table 4.6: Mean number of periods for tense and lax vowels, and statistical results for 3
speaking tasks and 2 prosodic positions, speaker sp012.
These results also hold for the remaining speakers. It should be noted, that in the
unstressed position, the situation is reversed: the “tense” vowels are somewhat shorter
than the “lax” vowels, as is indicated by the negative t-value. This inversion is
sometimes statistically significant, sometimes not. But the statistical significance is not
important in this case, since a parameter which is reversed under certain conditions
cannot make up a meaningful feature. As a summary, the NoP ratios for each person
under each condition can be read from Table 4.7.
NoP Ratio Logatomes Reading Spontaneous Reading Spontaneous
stressed unstressed unstressed unstressed
Speaker012 1.94 1.67 1.48 1.13 1.02
Speaker180 1.99 1.47 1.25 1.13 1.06
Speaker126 - 1.50 1.14 1.22 1.18
Speaker127 - 1.51 1.43 1.04 1.06
Speaker082 - 1.39 1.19 1.19 1.02
Speaker129 - 1.80 1.32 1.09 1.06
Table 4.7: NoP ratio of tense/lax vowels grouped over all speakers according to speaking
tasks and prosodic position.
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