We consider how lexical stress and phrasal accent influence the acoustic realization of cues to phonological voicing in German plosives. 22 native speakers of Standard German were recorded producing a total of 3168 utterances in both strong (stressed/focused) and weak (unstressed/unfocused) prosodic contexts, while holding prosodic domain constant. Both Voice Onset Time (VOT) and obstruent-intrinsic F0 (CF0) were analyzed. We found that differences in the magnitude of CF0 between voiced and voiceless plosives were greatest in the strong prosodic context, but were not always obliterated in the weak prosodic context. However, individual differences were also observed, with speakers broadly patterning into four groups with respect to the interaction of micro- and macroprosody. VOT differences were also more pronounced in strong prosodic contexts. We consider the implications of our findings for sound changes involving the reanalysis of obstruent-intrinsic F0.
Cite as: Kirby, J., Kleber, F., Siddins, J., Harrington, J. (2020) Effects of prosodic prominence on obstruent-intrinsic F0 and VOT in German. Proc. Speech Prosody 2020, 210-214, doi: 10.21437/SpeechProsody.2020-43
@inproceedings{kirby20_speechprosody,
author={James Kirby and Felicitas Kleber and Jessica Siddins and Jonathan Harrington},
title={{Effects of prosodic prominence on obstruent-intrinsic F0 and VOT in German}},
year=2020,
booktitle={Proc. Speech Prosody 2020},
pages={210--214},
doi={10.21437/SpeechProsody.2020-43}
}