Acoustic specification of North German vowels produced in citation and sentence contexts

Abstract

As part of a larger study of the effects of speech style and consonantal context on the acoustic specification and cross-language perceptual similarity of vowels, this study examined differences in acoustic parameters of North German (NG) vowels in hVp syllables produced in citation-form (as lists) and in the carrier sentence ‘‘Ich habe—gesacht.’’ Two instances of each of 14 vowels produced by 4 male speakers (Kiel dialect) spoken in each context were analyzed. Vowel formant frequencies (measured at syllable midpoint) showed some undershoot of F1 in sentence context relative to citation context; F2 undershoot was minimal. Duration differences between spectrally similar tense-lax pairs varied as a function of vowel height in both citation and sentence contexts. Overall, tense-lax duration differences were reduced in sentence context relative to citation form. Individual differences across speakers in both F1/F2 targets and intrinsic durations were noted. Distances in F1/F2 space could not account for perceptual assimilation patterns of AE listeners [see S. Trent et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am., this session]. These results have implications for conceptions of phonetic prototypes used to account for cross-language similarity. [Research supported by NIDCD.]