Sylvia Moosmüller

Voice and Aspiration in Austrian German Plosives

It is well-known that so-called voiced plosives in German, including Austrian German, are voiceless except between vowels where they are (sometimes) voiced (i.e. have vocal fold vibration during closure). Nonetheless, in the phonological literature, the contrast is often treated as one of [voice]. This leaves a rather substantial mismatch between the phonological description and the phonetic facts. Jessen & Ringen (2002) have recently presented experimental evidence in support of the position that the contrast in northern Standard German (NG) is one of [spread glottis]. It is often suggested that in Austrian German there is a two-way contrast of plosives, but no aspiration. This raises a question about whether the contrast in Austrian Standard German (AG) can possibly be one of [spread glottis] vs. non-[spread glottis]. This paper investigates this question. We present experimental results and argue that for AG, like NG, the appropriate feature of contrast is [spread glottis].

Phonetics and Phonology: A Sociopsycholinguistic Framework

Our aim is to present a sociopragmatic framework for phonological behavior and to comprehend phonology as part of a social action (in the sense of Schutz). This approach enables us to connect sociolog

The spread of Standard Albanian: An illustration based on an analysis of vowels

Modern Standard Albanian is a young variety, proclaimed in 1972 at the Congress of Orthography in Tirana. It is based on the Tosk variety, one of the two main varieties (Tosk and Gheg) of the Albanian language, which is spoken in the South of the country. The aim of the current investigation is to look at the way in which this Standard is realized by its representatives, the educated speakers of four geographical regions: South Albania, Middle Albania, North Albania, and Kosovo. The analysis is based on the realization of stressed vowels. It can be shown that there are striking differences between the speakers of the Republic of Albania and Kosovo, whereas within Albania, speakers from the different geographical regions adopt characteristic features from the other geographical regions. The spread of Standard Albanian is, therefore, not solely an intrusion of the Tosk-based variety into the Gheg varieties, but rather, speakers counterbalance among their varieties on the basis of the alleged variety. This article is a considerably revised version of a presentation given at the 2nd International Conference on Language Variation in Europe at Uppsala University in June, 2003. We are grateful for the comments of participants there and especially grateful for helpful comments by Werner Deutsch and two anonymous referees.

Standard Austrian German

The development of Standard Austrian German (SAG; de-AT) is closely linked to the development of Standard German German (SGG; de-DE) as spoken in Northern Germany. Traditionally, SAG is strongly geared towards SGG norms. The orientation towards SGG norms goes back to at least 1750, when Maria Theresia ordered the adoption of the Upper Saxonian norms in place at that time (Ebner 1969 , Wiesinger 1989 ). Since then, SAG pronunciation is modelled on SGG and Austrian newsreaders are instructed according to the norms of Dudens ( 2005 ) Ausspracheworterbuch and Siebs ( 1958 , with an addendum for Austria) (Wachter-Kollpacher 1995 , Soukup & Moosmuller 2011 ). This procedure leads to an inconsistent usage of SGG features in Austrian broadcasting media (Wiesinger 2009 , Soukup & Moosmuller 2011 , Hildenbrandt & Moosmuller 2015 ). Therefore, from a methodological point of view, pronunciation used in the Austrian broadcasting media is unsuitable for defining SAG (Moosmuller 2015 ).

Sociophonology and Aphasia

Sociophonological concepts or methods have not been applied to the study of aphasia in any systematic manner to date. We have combined two approaches—one developed in Vienna over the past 10 years and the other adapted to the study of aphasia—to enable such an application to language data collected on aphasic subjects in various test situations. These two approaches comprise the following: 1. The study of phonological disturbances in aphasia in terms of the framework of Natural Phonology (cf. Dressler, 1974, 1982. and chapter 1 of this volume). 2. The sociopsycholinguistic study of phonological variation as developed within the Department of Linguistics of the University of Vienna since 1972. In this approach, phonological processes and input switches, for example, are investigated in terms of social and psychological factors (cf. Dressler, 1975; Dressler & Wodak, 1982).

Unsupervised and phonologically controlled interpolation of Austrian German language varieties for speech synthesis

Abstract This paper presents an unsupervised method that allows for gradual interpolation between language varieties in statistical parametric speech synthesis using Hidden Semi-Markov Models (HSMMs). We apply dynamic time warping using Kullback–Leibler divergence on two sequences of HSMM states to find adequate interpolation partners. The method operates on state sequences with explicit durations and also on expanded state sequences where each state corresponds to one feature frame. In an intelligibility and dialect rating subjective evaluation of synthesized test sentences, we show that our method can generate intermediate varieties for three Austrian dialects (Viennese, Innervillgraten, Bad Goisern). We also provide an extensive phonetic analysis of the interpolated samples. The analysis includes input-switch rules, which cover historically different phonological developments of the dialects versus the standard language; and phonological processes, which are phonetically motivated, gradual, and common to all varieties. We present an extended method which linearly interpolates phonological processes but uses a step function for input-switch rules. Our evaluation shows that the integration of this kind of phonological knowledge improves dialect authenticity judgment of the synthesized speech, as performed by dialect speakers. Since gradual transitions between varieties are an existing phenomenon, we can use our methods to adapt speech output systems accordingly.

Alveolar and Velarized Laterals in Albanian and in the Viennese Dialect

A comparison of alveolar and velarized lateral realizations in two language varieties, Albanian and the Viennese dialect, has been performed. Albanian distinguishes the two laterals phonemically, whereas in the Viennese dialect, the velarized lateral was introduced by language contact with Czech immigrants. A categorical distinction between the two lateral phonemes is fully maintained in Albanian. Results are not as straightforward in the Viennese dialect. Most prominently, female speakers, if at all, realize the velarized lateral in word-final position, thus indicating the application of a phonetically motivated process. The realization of the velarized lateral by male speakers, on the other hand, indicates that the velarized lateral replaced the former alveolar lateral phoneme. Alveolar laterals are either realized in perceptually salient positions, thus governed by an input-switch rule, or in front vowel contexts, thus subject to coarticulatory influences. Our results illustrate the subtle interplay of phonology, phonetics and sociolinguistics.