VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

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Vowels in Standard Austrian German
below that point differences between tense and lax variants are inconsistent in sign and
considerably smaller in magnitude. (Tiede 1996: 415f)
And he continues:
The English sagittal measurements showing smaller differences in magnitude for both
tongue root advancement and laryngeal lowering than Akan, and greater differences in
tongue dorsum height, suggest a relatively more significant role for tongue height in
maintaining the English contrast. (Tiede 1996: 418)
Tiede (1996) also elaborates on the relationship between dorsum height and tongue root
advancement, two adjustments that may be intrinsically linked. Whereas Akan,
however, controls the muscle responsible for a concomitant change in tongue height for
[+ATR] vowels, tongue height is accompanied with tongue root advancement in
English. Therefore, it can be inferred that the primary feature used to express the
tense/lax distinction in English is tongue height with facultative accompanying tongue
root advancement, whereas in Akan the distinction is expressed primarily by tongue
root advancement. The accompanying raise of the tongue dorsum is suppressed.
Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996) come to similar conclusions:
In Igbo and Akan the tongue height is not correlated with the tongue root position. In English
the position of the tongue root is correlated with the tongue height…..We conclude that the
advancement of the tongue root is a separable tongue gesture in languages such as Igbo and
Akan. In Germanic languages, however, it is simply one of the concomitants of vowel
height. (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996: 303f)
Recently, following up the hypothesis proposed by Halle & Stevens (1969), Slifka
(2003) tested F1 slope (indicating breathiness) and point in time of the energy peak for
tense/lax vowel pairs in English. Although 88,9% of all tense vowels exposed a falling
slope and 91,7% of all lax vowels exposed a rising slope, indicating more breathiness in
the tense vowels, her results are not consistent across the speakers tested and ultimately
fail to classify vowels correctly. It has to be noted, furthermore, that breathiness is not
only a facultative consequence of advanced tongue root, but also of tongue fronting and
tongue heightening. Therefore, the feature ATR cannot be inferred from increased
breathiness. Consequently, the feature [± ATR] is not responsible for the opposition
termed [± tense] in the Germanic languages.