Variation in the pronunciation of German ‘‘ein−’’

Abstract

Pronunciation variation of German ‘‘ein−’’ is examined (unstressed indefinite article ‘‘ein,’’ ‘‘einen,’’ as well as stressed instances of ‘‘ein−,’’ i.e., the numeral or as part of a compound) based on a larger corpus of read and spontaneous speech according to segmental variation (elisions, assimilations, etc.) and acoustic features (segmental durations, extent of formant transitions, etc.). Second, the results of a combined electropalatographical/electromagnetic-articulographical study are presented. Two male subjects uttered the items ‘‘ein’’ and ‘‘einen’’ embedded in test sentences at normal, slow, and fast speech rate. Electropalatographically tongue palate contacts for the nasal segments (duration, center of gravity of contact area) were analyzed. The EMA measurements of movement from the diphthong to nasal (or from diphthong to nasal to schwa to nasal) were done with a sensor coil mounted 1 cm behind the tip of the tongue and another one mounted on a strip of elastic foil glued to the EPG palate for sensoring velar movement. Articulatory analysis revealed quite complex gestural reductions for bisyllabic ‘‘einen:’’ Even for items without schwa elision (only at a slow rate) there is no velar closing movement for the schwa.