ABSTRACT: The aim of the current study is to investigate the contextual conditions ofuddevoicing of phonologically voiced stops. Therefore articulatory and acoustical data of fourudmale speakers were recorded by means of EMMA and EPG. Devoicing was observed moreudfrequently for the velar stops than for the bilabials. The highest occurrence of devoicing wasudobserved when the voiced stop was followed by a low or mid vowel. To test whetherudarticulatory positions are affected by the identity of the following vowel ANOVAs wereudcomputed. All subjects showed significant effects on positional data varying with place ofudarticulation of the stop. Percentage of devoicing was significantly correlated with vertical andudhorizontal tongue positions for the velar and with the vertical jaw position for both stops.udStepwise regression models were computed to achieve an objective measure for the relevanceudof the measured parameters. We assume that in German movement economy, i.e.udcoarticulation, is more important than the maintenance of voicing during the closure, which isudin agreement with the view that the voicing distinction in German is primarily produced by audlonger VOT for the voiceless stops.
展开▼
