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Characteristics of the West-Central-Bavarian Vowel System

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Characteristics of the West-Central-Bavarian Vowel System Characteristics of the West-Central Bavarian dialect: A comparison between children and adults Katrin Wolfswinkler, Jonathan Harrington Institute of Phonetics and Speech Processing, LMU Munich [email protected] Background Results 1) /a, ɒ/ is closer together for young than for old The West-Central-Bavarian (WCB) dialect is spoken in the South of Germany and in most parts of Austria. adult child −2 There is much evidence that Standard German (SG) is 1 superimposed on German dialects. (e.g. Müller et al. 2011, Bukmaier & Harrington, 2014) 0 a A e Most of the literature concerned with WCB is based on i 0 F1 (Hz) 2 o impressionistic auditory descritpions. (e.g. Zehetner, 1985; Merkle, 1976; Capell, 1979) Relative distance between /o/ and /a/ distance between Relative 4 −1 General aims 3 2 1 0 −1 −2 3 2 1 0 −1 −2 adult child F2 (Hz) Group 1) Systematical measurement of some of the primary • /ɒ/ is closer to /o/ and further from /a/ Relative distances using orthogenal vowel characteristics of WCB for adults projection: acoustically based analysis of the Bavarian vowel • For children it is the other way round system Children`s /ɒ/ is significantly closer Shift in the direction of SG to their /a/ category than it is the case 2) Determine whether young show more SG for adults (p < .001) characteristics than old on some attributes of vowels where WCB and SG are known to differ 2) There is a quality difference between long and short vowels for young but not for old adult adult adult L L L To test this… a e i a e i −2 7 6 Acoustic recordings via a picture naming task of 0 5 2 4 4 L S S S child child child a e i L a e i 7 F1 (Hz) S −2 6 0 Distance to centroid 5 4 2 25 WCB speaking adult child adult child adult child 21 WCB speaking 4 Group 1st grade 2 1 0 2 1 0 2 1 0 adults from the F2 (Hz) primary school same dialect area Euclidean distances between same vowel children • Adults´ vowel quality difference is large caused by duration pairs: • Children show quality differences which Children make greater use of quality to are far greater than would be expected differentiate short vs. long vowels Material from duration alone Significantly different (p <.0001) for Phonologisation of the quality every vowel Single words with vowels as target sounds that are difference in the same way as in SG characteristic of WCB and deviate particularly strongly 3) The quantity correlation between vowel and following consonant is weakened for from SG younger speakers • Bavarian open vowel contrast adult child a a Bavarian /ɒ, a/ vs. Standard /a/ adult child 400 300 SG /kabel, gabel/ = /kawe, gɒwe/ WCB 300 200 100 Length Length e e • Bavarian quantity relation 200 L L S adult child S Phonological long/short vowel distinction (long has V:C, 400 300 short has VC:) - not correspondent to Standard tense/lax 100 /s/ (ms) Duration Duration vowel (ms) vowel Duration 200 100 SG tense lax lax 100 200 300 100 200 300 a e a e Duration vowel (ms) Vowel ‘Wiese‘ ‘Tisch‘ ‘wissen‘ For vowel length children and adults show Children make less use of WCB long long short a similar pattern: phonological long vowels consonant length in distinguishing are signifcantly longer than phonological short-long vowel pairs (p > 0.05 for short vowels (p < .0001 for both groups) children, p < 0.001 for adults) Hypotheses Conclusion 1) /a, ɒ/ is closer together for young than for old 2) There is a quality difference between long and short Results could acoustically verify that children (as well as adults) clearly produce WCB vowels as vowels for young but not for old described in literature but children are subtly conditioned by SG in the following ways: 3) The quantity correlation between vowel and 1) The distinction between front/back open vowels /a, ɒ/ is less marked for children following consonant is weakened for younger 2) Children produce a greater quality difference in short vs. long vowels speakers 3) Children make less use of consonant length in distinguishing short-long vowel pairs.
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