Typology of Vowel and Consonant Quantity in Southern German varieties: acoustic, perception, and articulatory analyses of adult and child speakers
Applied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics
Final Report Abstract
Languages and their sound systems change over time. These sound changes can be observed retrospectively (e.g. Latin noctem → Italian notte), but also during the actual sound change process. A sound change currently affecting the temporal structure of syllables in West Central Bavarian and Alemannic was the focus of this project, which examined in more detail the relationship between currently observable, i.e. synchronous, variation and diachronic changes in southern German varieties. In two project phases two overall objectives were pursued: (1) modelling the conditions under which quantity relationships change diachronically in order to gain a better understanding of sound change processes in the world's languages; (2) modelling the temporal course of phonological change. The extensive investigations of the first funding phase on the (in)stability of phonemic quantity in vowelconsonant sequences (VCS) provided new evidence for (1) sound change processes in Bavarian VCS in Austria and Germany due to dialect compensation, (2) the intergenerational stability of VCS in Swiss German dialects and (3) the development of aspirated plosives in younger speakers of Bavarian and Swiss German dialects. The second project phase built on these findings and specifically investigated (1) emerging trade-offs between acoustic cues in diachronic change, (2) the impact of language contact and interaction on sound change using agent-based modelling, and (3) the spread of sound change processes through lexical diffusion. These findings were again used (4) to improve dialect synthesis. The innovation of the project lay in the large-scale, cross-varietal apparent time study; in the combination of different methods to test linguistic theories; in the consideration of social and phonetic factors; in the application of computational methods to extensive, cross-varietal data from speakers of different age groups; in the exploration of possible applications for language technology. The project combined the acoustic and sociophonetic analyses of quantity relationships in Austrian varieties including their application to dialect synthesis established in Vienna with the acoustic, perceptual and physiological methods developed at the IPS (Munich) on the production-perception relationship in speakers of different age groups and the methods established at the Phonetic Laboratory (Zurich) for the typology of Swiss German varieties. The collaboration between the three sites has contributed among others to improving sound change models, as the role of internal and external factors in the (in)stability of quantity can now be better assessed.
Publications
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Internal and external factors in a Bavarian sound change: Measurements in apparent-time and agent-based simulations. Dissertation LMU Munich.
Jochim, Markus
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Einfluss von Entrauschungsverfahren auf die automatische Segmentierung mit WebMAUS. In: O. Niebuhr, M. Svensson Lundmark, H. Weston (eds.), Elektronische Sprachsignalverarbeitung 2022, Sonderborg (ISSN: 0940-6832). TUD Press, 147–153. PDF
Gutscher, L.; Klingler, N. & Pucher, M.
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Fast-Speech-Induced Hypoarticulation Does Not Considerably Affect the Diachronic Reversal of Complementary Length in Central Bavarian. Language and Speech, 67(2), 463-497.
Jochim, Markus & Kleber, Felicitas
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Improving the quality of synthesized speech of a Viennese dialect speaker through speaker adaptation. In: O. Niebuhr, M. Svensson Lundmark, H. Weston (eds.), Elektronische Sprachsignalverarbeitung 2022, Sonderborg (ISSN: 0940-6832). TUD Press, 228–234
Gutscher, L. & Pucher, M.
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On the role of asymmetry in prosodic change of consonant duration: Results from an agent-based model with two German varieties. Speech Prosody 2022, 249-253.
Cronenberg, Johanna; Klingler, Nicola; Kleber, Felicitas & Pucher, Michael
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Revisiting Pfalz' law for two Viennese varieties. In: M. Pucher & P. Balazs (eds.), Akustische Phonetik und ihre multidisziplinären Aspekte. Ein Gedenkband für Sylvia Moosmüller. ÖAW, 91–111
Kleber, F.; Klingler, N.; Jochim, M.; Pucher, M.; Schmid, S. & Zihlmann, U.
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Increasing aspiration of Swiss German plosives: a sound change in progress? Proc. 20th ICPhS, Prague, Czech Republic (ISSN: 2412-0669), 3031–3035. PDF
Zebe, F.; Watter, C. & Schmid, S.
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Increasing aspiration of word-medial fortis plosives in Swiss Standard German. INTERSPEECH 2023, 1828-1832.
Zebe, Franka
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Neural Speech Synthesis for Austrian Dialects with Standard German Grapheme-to-Phoneme Conversion and Dialect Embeddings. 2nd Annual Meeting of the ELRA/ISCA SIG on Under-resourced Languages (SIGUL 2023), 68-72.
Gutscher, Lorenz; Pucher, Michael & Garcia, Víctor
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Phonotactically driven cue weighting in a sound change in progress: acoustic evidence from West Central Bavarian. Proc. 20th ICPhS, Prague, Czech Republic (ISSN: 2412-0669), 3011–3015. PDF
Thon, K. & Kleber, F.
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So near yet so far: fine phonetic differences in tonal alignment and temporal structure in close contact varieties. Proc. 20th ICPhS, Prague, Czech Republic (ISSN: 2412-0669), 1285–1289. PDF
Pöhnlein, J. & Kleber, F.
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The emergence of obstruent-intrinsic f0 and VOT as cues to the fortis/lenis contrast in West Central Bavarian. INTERSPEECH 2023, 1808-1812.
Pöhnlein, Jasmin & Kleber, Felicitas
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Vowel and consonant quantity in two Swiss German dialects and their corresponding varieties of Standard German: effects of region, age, and tempo. Phonetica, 80(3-4), 185-223.
Zebe, Franka
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Reconstructing the timeline of a consonantal change in a German dialect: evidence from agent-based modeling. Speech Dynamics, 307-340.
Jochim, Markus & Kleber, Felicitas
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Timing aspects in fundamental frequency as a function of speaker group. Dissertation LMU Munich
Pöhnlein, J.
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Vowel and Plosive Durations in Swiss German Varieties: Stability and Change. Dissertation University of Zurich
Zebe-Sheng, F.
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Synchrone und diachrone Variation in der temporalen Struktur gesprochener Wörter in Varietäten der DACH-Region. Gesprochenes Deutsch, 105-130.
Kleber, Felicitas
