Original scientific paper

FORMANT FREQUENCIES OF STANDARD SLOVENE VOWELS

Peter Jurgec ; Fran Ramovš Institute of the Slovenian Language SRC SASA, Ljubljana Slovcnia

Abstract

Formant J'requencies of standard Slovene have already heen analvsed by several phoneticians (Lehiste, 1961; Toporišič, 1975; Petek et ah, 1996; Ozbič. 1998; Tivadar, 2004a). The aim of this study is to present a more in-depth view of stressed vowe/s and their formant frequencies, in order to address some of the prob/ems that have not yet been considered. A 24l-word corpus of one- to threesvllables was compiled according to suprasegmental criteria (stress, tone, duration). Ten subjeets were ehosen, representative by sex, tone contrast, dialect of origin, etc. F1-F4 of a total of5,960 vowe1s were measured using Praat LPCanalysis software. A total of 21,220 readings, or 95.41% were acknowledged. Data were averaged and analvsed statistica/lv (ANOVA). The measurements confirm that lexical tone does not influence formant frecpiencies of most vowels to any statistical significance (see F1 *F2 vowel space in Fig. 3). However, there are statistica/lv significant differences among accent types of/e/, /a/, Jo/, and /u/. IVhile dispersion of /u/ is most probablv induced by segmenta/ variab/es, the differentiation of/e/, /a/ and /o/ can be exp/ained by comparing two varieties of SS, the tonal and the non-tonal. In the latter, the contrast bet\veen the tones is statislical/y insignificant (fortheoming-a). Separate vowel spaces and values are given for female and male speakers (Fig. 4).

Keywords

vowel formant frecjuencv; vowels; lexical tone; phonetic differences; the Slovene language; the standard language

Hrčak ID:

173752

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/173752

Publication date:

1.9.2005.

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