The Role of the Accented-Vowel Onset in the Perception of German Early and Medial Peaks

Starting from a series of speech stimuli representing an F0 peak shift continuum from German early to medial peak, a series of non-speech stimuli is created. These non-speech stimuli show the F0 and intensity courses of the original speech stimuli, but with a constant formant structure. The results of a perception experiment reveal that the organisation of the peak shift continuum found for the identification of early and medial peaks in the speech stimuli can be replicated by the nonspeech stimuli, indicating that early and medial peaks are signalled by an interplay of the F0 and intensity courses without reference to the spectral change at the accented-vowel onset.