Akustische Phonetik und ihre multidisziplinären Aspekte

The aim of this book is to honor the multidisciplinary work of Doz. Dr. Sylvia Moosmüller† in the field of acoustic phonetics. The essays in this volume range from sociophonetics, language diagnostics, dialectology, to language technology. They thus exemplify the breadth of acoustic phonetics, which has been shaped by influences from the humanities and technical sciences since its beginnings.Ziel dieses Buches ist es, die multidisziplinäre Arbeit von Doz. Dr. Sylvia Moosmüller (†) im Bereich der akustischen Phonetik zu würdigen. Die Aufsätze in diesem Band sind in der Soziophonetik, Sprachdiagnostik, Dialektologie und Sprachtechnologie angesiedelt. Sie stellen damit exemplarisch die Breite der akustischen Phonetik dar, die seit ihrer Entstehung durch Einflüsse aus den Geisteswissenschaften und den technischen Wissenschaften geprägt war

Determining categoricity in English /l/-darkening:A principal component analysis of ultrasound spline data

Although syllable-based accounts of /l/-darkening in English state that light [l] occurs in onsets (e.g. ‘leap’) and a dark [ë] in codas (e.g. ‘peel’), analyses of the process from several phonetic studies have led to some arguing against an allophonic distinction altogether, stating that the difference between light and dark variants is merely two extremes of one continuum. The current paper attempts to address this debate using ultrasound tongue imaging, in particular, a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of tongue spline data. Although PCA of spline contours may be seen as a relatively rough method when compared with analysis of raw pixel images, it is argued that the simplicity of attaching one individual figure to a contour is a highly efficient and convenient method for observing general patterns in the dat