Functional data analysis of tongue articulation in palatal vowels: gothenburg and malmöhus Swedish /iː, yː, ̟ʉː/

This study used Functional Data Analysis (FDA) to analyse tongue articulation dynamics, more specifically the height and frontness of the tongue body and tip in the palatal vowels /i:, y:, 0ff:/ of two varieties of Swedish. Articulatory data were collected from nine speakers each of Gothenburg and Malmöhus Swedish. Standard z-score transformations were used for speaker normalisation. Results showed that the tongue articulation for /i:/ and /y:/ is generally similar, and significantly different from /0: ff / in both Malmöhus and Gothenburg Swedish. We also found a subdivision of Gothenburg Swedish into two subtypes, where type 1 resembled Malmöhus Swedish more. Significant differences in tongue body height were found between all varieties for all of the vowels, except for /y:/ between Gothenburg type 1 and Malmöhus Swedish.