VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

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Vowels in Standard Austrian German
degree of formality decreases or prosodic position weakens, constriction length
decreases, constriction degree widens, and F3 decreases again. The vowel /i/ is affected
by this acoustic instability; the mean F3 value decreases by 12 % for reading sentences
as compared to reading logatomes, whereas average F3 only decreases by 4.5 % for
reading sentences as compared to spontaneous speech (see Table 4.14).
The instability of F3 of the vowel /i/ is most conspicuous in the intermediate
speaking task of reading sentences, as becomes apparent from the density plot of all
measured F3 values for the vowel /i/, broken down for three speaking tasks (Figure 4.9).
Density
0.0000 0.0005 0.0010 0.0015 0.0020 0.0025 0.0030
2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
Hz
x
x
x
mean 1 = 3230.06 Hz
mean 2 = 2925.41 Hz
mean 3 = 2715.71 Hz
Figure 4.9: Density plot of all F3 values for the vowel /i/ in the stressed position, speaker
sp012. Black line: logatome reading task, red line: sentence reading task, green
line: spontaneous speech.
It can be seen from Figure 4.9 that F3 of the sentence reading task exhibits two evenly
distributed peaks, one overlapping with the logatome reading task, indicating a front
cavity affiliation for F3, the other overlapping with spontaneous speech, indicating a