VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

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Vowels in Standard Austrian German
Table 4.11 presents the feature matrix of the vowels of Standard Austrian German
assumed from the articulatory investigations so far:
/i/ /ç/ /y/ /Y/ /e/ /E/ /ë/ /ê/ /A/ /a/ /o/ /O/ /u/ /ï/
constricted + – + – + – + – + – + – + –
round – – + + – – + + – – + + + +
front + + + + + + + + – – – – – –
lower pharyngeal – – – – – – – – + + – – – –
velar – – – – – – – – – – – – + +
pre-palatal + + + + – – – – – – – – – –
Table 4.11: Feature matrix of the vowels assumed for Standard Austrian German so far.
4.4. Acoustic analysis of the vowels of Standard
Austrian German.
It is well known that changes in the quality of a given vowel are dependent on the
speaking task, the speech situation, or the prosodic position. This variation is consistent,
planned, and, consequently, predictable to a high degree (see Chapter 5). Therefore, it
makes no sense to test whether a given vowel maintains one and the same quality over
diverse speaking tasks. It is, however, of relevance, whether, within a given speaking
task, the speakers uphold the oppositions assumed in Chapter 4.3, or whether any
neutralizations within a certain speaking task or a certain prosodic position (be it, e.g.,
either in a stressed position or in spontaneous speech) can be observed in the data. Such
neutralizations, where they are consistent over all speakers, might point to a sound
change in progress. One-tailed t-tests have been performed to test whether the assumed
oppositions are preserved within each speaking task for a given vowel pair.
Neutralization was defined in cases where a given vowel pair showed no statistically
significant differences, or where it showed a significant difference that points, however,
in the wrong direction, e.g. a higher F3 value for /ç/ as opposed to /i/. These latter cases
are marked as bold and italic in the tables.