Rhythmic variability in Swiss German dialects

Abstract

Speech rhythm can be measured acoustically in terms of durational characteristics of consonantal and vocalic intervals. The present paper investigated how acoustically measurable rhythm varies across dialects of Swiss German. Rhythmic measurements (%V, ∆C, ∆V, varcoC, varcoV, rPVI-C, nPVI- C, nPVI-V) were carried out on four sentences of six speakers from eight Swiss dialects. Results indicate that there are significant differences across the dialects in some rhythm measures but not in others and that dialects can be grouped according to rhythmic characteristics.