Production of vowel contrasts in Northern Standard German and Austrian Standard German

The inventory of 15 German full vowels realized by speakers of Northern Standard German (NSG) and Austrian Standard German (ASG) is investigated acoustically. The vowels were produced in phonotactically regular nonsense words (bVp and dVt environments) embedded in a sentence frame. The analyses revealed that the main difference between both varieties can be found in a different acoustic realization of the tense-lax contrast in high (especially front) vowels. With respect to spectral as well as temporal structure ASG lax high vowels are very much closer to their tense counterparts than in NSG. For the tense-lax differentiation here the greater long/short ratio as well as a higher f0 for lax vowels in ASG are much stronger cues than in NSG.