Stefanie Jannedy

Perceptual evidence for allophonic variation of the palatal fricative /ç/ in spontaneous Berlin German.

Auer (2004) postulates that the multi‐ethnolect Kiezdeutsch (Berlin, Germany) differentiates three realizations of /ɪc/: [ɪc]; [ɪ∫]; [ɪφ]. Acoustic analyzes of 1192 tokens of /c/ from the ZAS‐spontaneous speech database (collected from nine adolescent speakers of the Kiezdeutsch multi‐ethnolect as spoken in Berlin) showed no reliable differences in kurtosis, skewness, cog, or peak between items impressionistically categorized into these three groups. Further, in the spontaneous speech of middle‐aged monolingual speakers of the local Berlin dialect [∫] variants of /c/ were also detected, although here this alternation is not attested. The hypotheses are (1) that Berlin‐German also has [∫] as an allophonic variant of /c/ and (2) that Kiezdeutsch has a 3‐way‐split of this category. To evaluate the perceptual validity of these assumptions, tests are being conducted asking native Berliners to rate the category membership of excised variant realizations of /c/ and /∫/ from the Kiezdeutsch‐ and Berlin‐database o...

Prosodic boundaries in German: Final lengthening in spontaneous speech.

Most theories of prosodic structure postulate at least two phrasal categories above the word level, a minor and a major one. One correlate of phrasal boundary marking is lengthening on the right edge of a phrase. To gain a theory neutral understanding of the nature of prosodic boundaries, a Gaussian mixed model (GMM) was applied to durational data, estimating the underlying clusters of a continuous distribution. Spontaneous speech data were collected with standardized interviews from 19 adolescent speakers of a multi‐ethnolect (Kiezdeutsch, Hood German) spoken in Berlin, orthographically transcribed and added to a database that allowed for searches of the particle “so”(so or like) in different conditions. Acoustic durations of /z/ and /o/ of so in phrase final position (as determined by orthographical markings or by following pauses) were labeled and z‐transformed per speaker. The results show that a model including two clusters accounts best for the data. Nevertheless, there is an overlap between the two...

High vowel devoicing in Turkish

Jun and Beckman (ICSLP94) explain vowel devoicing in Japanese and Korean in terms of gestural overlap [Browman and Goldstein, LabPhon1 (1990)]; the glottal gestures for preceding and following voiceless consonants overlap to a greater or lesser extent with the glottal gesture for high vowels. The devoicing of the four short high Turkish [i barred eye y u] can be explained by the same model which predicts that vowels are more likely to undergo devoicing if they are short and the adjacent voiceless consonants have strong and large glottal opening gestures. This study evaluates influencing factors such as preceding and following environment, rate, stress, and syllable type. Subjects read 210 words positioned utterance initially in a carrier phrase at three rates. Faster rates and lack of stress facilitated devoicing most. As in Japanese and Korean, there were more devoiced vowels before following stops than before following fricatives, since vocal fold vibration ceases gradually before fricatives, but abruptly before stops. Devoicing also occurred in utterance‐initial position. This result is less easy to interpret in terms of the model, since only the following laryngeal gesture can overlap with the vocalic gesture. More devoicing occurred in open syllables, where vowels are significantly shorter in Turkish.

Proceedings of the Conference on Phonetics & Phonology in German-speaking countries (P&P 13)

Die vorliegende Studie uberpruft die Hypothese, wonach die Ahnlichkeit zwischen Sprachlauten von L2 und L1 sich erschwerend auf den Ausspracheerwerb in einer Fremdsprache auswirkt. Als Beispiel dient dazu die Artikulation der deutschen Plosive /p t k/ und /b d g/ durch italienischsprachige Lernende. Im Rahmen eines didaktischen Experiments in Bellinzona (Schweiz) wurden 20 Schuler im Abstand von einer Woche zweimal beim Lesen von Satzen aufgenommen. Um die Wirksamkeit von explizitem Ausspracheunterricht zu uberprufen, erhielten 10 Schuler ein spezifisches Training bereits vor der zweiten Aufnahme, die anderen 10 Schuler hingegen erst nachher. Die akustische Auswertung der Stimmeinsatzzeit (VOT) liefert Evidenz fur die Schwierigkeit dieser ahnlichen Konsonanten. Tendenziell realisierten die Schuler stimmlose Plosive mit kurzer VOT und stimmhafte Plosive mit negativer VOT. Das explizite Training scheint nur eine geringe Wirkung zu zeitigen: insgesamt trat in beiden Gruppen keine signifikante Veranderung zwischen den beiden Aufnahmen ein. Immerhin wiesen 4 von 10 Schulern aus der Gruppe mit Aussprachetraining in der zweiten Aufnahme langere VOT-Werte auf.Even though there are many studies on the acquisition of intonation, it is not clear yet how the acquisitional path of yes/no-questions (YNQs) develops in children learning languages that distinguish interrogatives and declaratives by means of pitch contours. The present study investigates the intonational realisation of information-seeking YNQs and declarative statements (DCLs) by monolingual German children between 2;8 and 4;0. Child productions were analysed for pitch range and phonological pitch patterns. Our findings suggest that, independent of age, DCLs are predominantly marked by falling f0 with a L-% boundary tone. The youngest children produce YNQs with both falling and rising patterns where L-% is the most common boundary tone. In contrast, 3to 4-year-olds produce YNQs mostly with rising f0 with either L-H% or H^H%. Thus, although the youngest children may be aware of the prosodic difference, they do not use pitch consistently yet to differentiate YNQs and DCLs. As of age 3;0, German children make conscious and consistent use of boundary tones to mark YNQs and DCLs.

Spectral moments vs discrete cosine transformation coefficients: Evaluation of acoustic measures distinguishing two merging German fricatives

The results of the quantification of the acoustic differences between German /ç/ and /ʃ/ in three speaker groups with varying contrast realizations are presented. Data for two speaker groups were collected in Berlin and Kiel, where the contrast is still realized. Data for a third group were collected in Berlin from speakers of Hood German-a youth-style multiethnolect spoken by adolescents in multilingual and multicultural neighborhoods of Berlin-where the contrast has weakened or is even lost. A forced choice perception test showed that listeners reliably differentiate these two fricatives in minimal pairs produced by the speakers from Berlin and Kiel, but fail to do so for the productions of the Hood German speakers. The acoustic analysis reveals that spectrally, the fricatives are very similar in all varieties. The spectral moments (Center of Gravity, standard deviation, kurtosis, skewness) fail to reveal the differences between the fricatives that are apparent from visual inspection of the spectra and the perceived auditory differences. Analyses of the discrete cosine transformation coefficients, however, better quantify these differences. This study suggests that minute differences between fricatives that vary between speaker groups may be captured more reliably with discrete cosine transformations compared to spectral moments.

/oy/ as an identity marker of Hood German in Berlin

A recent observation of multi-cultural urban German speech as spoken in Berlin is that the diphthong /oy/ is realized more centralized and fronted compared to the standard variety of Berlin German. For this study, spontaneous speech data was collected through standardized interviews from 11 female speakers from different neighborhoods in Berlin. Their speech was orthographically transcribed and added to a database that allows for searching for all occurrences of the diphthong in its naturally occurring context in unscripted speech. So far, 654 occurrences of these vowels have been analyzed. Measurements of the first and second formants were taken at five equally distanced points throughout the diphthong. Linear mixed effects models were run with different points across the F2-formant as the dependent variable in the two varieties of German. The second formant serves as an estimate of the degree of fronting in the two varieties of German. Results indicate that the nucleus of the /oy/ is realized more cent...

/oy/ as a marker of local identity in Berlin

A fairly recent observation of multi-cultural urban German speech as spoken in Berlin is that the diphthongs /oy/ and /ey/ are realized more closed and fronted compared to more standard varieties of German. For this pilot study, spontaneous speech data were collected through standardized interviews from five young female speakers from two different neighborhoods in Berlin: Wedding is more Arab-dominant while Kreuzberg is more Turkish dominant. Their speech was orthographically transcribed and added to a database that allows for searching for all occurrences of the two diphthongs under investigation in their naturally occurring context in unscripted speech. So far, 250 occurrences of these vowels have been analyzed. Formant measurements were taken at five equally distanced points throughout the diphthong. A linear mixed effects model with the midpoint of the F2-formant value as the dependent variable were run, showing that speakers from the arab neighborhood (Wedding) significantly differ in their producti...

A phonological interpretation of the ‘‘Gussenhoven–Rietveld Effect’’

Dutch listeners rate the perceived prominence of the second fundamental frequency (F0) peak (P2) to increase as the first peak (P1) increases and decreases in F0 while P2 is held constant. This Gussenhoven–Rietveld effect was replicated with English listeners [Ladd et al. (1994)]. They interpret the positive correlation between the frequency of P1 and the perceived prominence of P2 as a function of the pitch range. Gussenhoven and Rietveld (1997) attribute this effect to parsing P1 and P2 as occurring in a single phrase, signaled by the intonation contour between the peaks. It is proposed that listeners parse the intonation phrase internal F0 peaks as relational to each other and as good or bad instances of phonological accent categories: An F0 contour with a lower P1 and a higher P2 can be interpreted as an H* L+H* sequence, with the realization of the L+H* as not prominent for this category. A flat‐shaped F0 contour with P1 and P2 roughly equal can be interpreted as an H* accent on both peaks. A higher P1 interpolating onto a lower P2 can be interpreted as a rather prominent instance of a downstepped H* accent on P2. This explanation assumes a phonological interpretation of intonation contours.

Acquisition of contrastive emphasis

In English, broad and late narrow focus have identical accent patterns: Pitch accents are aligned with the last accentable constituent within an intonation contour. Under early narrow focus, the pitch accent is claimed to shift to an earlier location and the last accentable syllable is deaccented. This study examined acquisition of the narrow focus pattern, using a picture‐naming task, in which either the object or its color differed from the previous picture. Subjects were asked to use adjective–noun sequences to name each picture and then to name the difference from the previous picture. Spontaneous utterances from 42 children (age 3–10) and six adults were obtained with implicit and explicit contrast (narrow focus) on either adjective or noun, and labeled prosodically for pitch‐accent type and location. A subset of the utterances was used in a perception experiment: 18 naive listeners judged either the adjective or the noun to be contrastively emphasized. An ANOVA on the contrast‐type. Listeners consis...