14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-14)

San Francisco, CA, USA
August 1-7, 1999


The Change of Diphthongs in Standard Viennese German: The Diphthong /aɛ/

Ralf Vollmann (1), Sylvia Moosmüller (2)

(1) Institute of Linguistics, University of Graz, Austria
(2) Acoustics Research Department, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria

The realization of the diphthongs /aɛ/ and /ɑɔ/ of Standard Austrian German differs between the two big dialect regions and this difference also affects the process of monophthongization, especially affecting the direction of the assimilation. However, neither the difference in diphthong realization nor the difference in the application of the process of monophthongization existed in the late nineteen-fifties. Observing the realization of the diphthong /aE/ over the past decades, a constant rise of F2 can be observed at the onset of the diphthog in the Viennese Standard variety. Gradually, in the Viennese Standard variety, the onset steady state of the diphthong /aE/ has given way to a gliding movement. Long offset steady state portions could be observed in the late seventies for the first time, consequently, they have to be interpreted as uncertainty in diphthong articulation due to the rapid progession of the process of monophthongization.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Vollmann, Ralf / Moosmüller, Sylvia (1999): "The change of diphthongs in standard Viennese German: the diphthong /aɛ/", In ICPhS-14, 345-348.