VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

Sylvia Moosmüller
Vowel category Variability Coefficient NoP r: NoP/F1 r: NoP/F2 r: NoP/F3
/ë/ 34.39 0,26 0.43 0.88
/ê/ 21,39 0.57 0.22 0.19
/y/ 48,97 0.26 0.17 0.48
/Y/ 34.19 0.52 0.76 0.52
/u/ 42.30 0.18 0.25 0.06
/ï/ 33,29 0.02 0.28 0.34
/o/ 28.29 0.36 0.11 0.02
/O/ 42.08 0.06 0.23 0.06
/i/ 36.64 0.06 0.45 0.56
/ç/ 31.59 0.36 0.16 0.17
/e/ 33.81 0.27 0.31 0.10
/E/ 34.74 0.07 0.03 0.13
/a/ 32,78 0.49 0.03 0.19
/A/ 29.72 0.56 0.10 0.39
Table 4.9: Variability coefficient of NoP and correlation coefficient r for NoP/F1, F2, and F3
for each vowel. Statistically significant results (p < 0.05) are in bold. Speaker
sp012, sentence reading task, stressed position.
As becomes evident from Table 4.9, although the variability of NoP within each
category is very high (see variability coefficient), the quality of the vowel does not
change in dependence of NoP. This resistance to durational changes also becomes clear
from the within category variability of the first three formants (see Table 4.10).
It can be seen from Table 4.10 that the variability coefficient for each formant is
substantially smaller than the variability coefficient for NoP. From these results it can
be concluded that in the stressed position, vowel quality is preserved within each vowel
category, despite substantial variability in vowel duration. Moreover, it can be
concluded that – contrary to the assumption proposed in Jakobson & Halle (1961/2002 3 )
– vowels labeled as “lax” are not mere attenuated variants of their tense counterparts,
but autonomous phonemes with separate articulatory settings.
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