Changes in Austrian plosive pronunciation during the 20th century: An acoustical study of speakers born between 1910 and 1960 with a focus on voice onset time and pitch skip
Abstrakt
Plosive consonants (also called occlusives or occlusive sounds) are conglomerates of various phonetic characteristics (for example voicing, aspiration) and are particularly susceptible to phonetic and phonemic variability due to their complex interplay. Changes in the form of plosive mergers can often be found in phonetic literature and two prominent examples at the moment concern the Korean Seoul dialect and Afrikaans, where plosive contrasts are dissolving.
The present study deals with the opposite development - plosive splits - a relatively rare acoustic phenomenon that received less attention in phonetic literature and which took place in Austrian German in the 20th century. A previously small phonetic distinction between fortis and lenis plosives developed from the middle of the 20th century into a clear phonetic contrast.
Voice-onset time in plosives and pitch skip from subsequent vowels were measured in two generations of Austrian speakers (born in the 1910 / 20s and in the 1940 / 50s) and a phonetic split that shortened lenis VOT and extended fortis VOT could be sketched. These results provide insights into recent diachronic developments in Austrian German in relation to sound changes in word-initial plosives and their influence on their phonemic environment.