The Acoustic Vowel Space of Modern Greek and German

Abstract

The spectral characteristics of vowels in Modern Greek and German were examined. Four speakers of Modern Greek and three speakers of German produced four repetitions of words containing each vowel of their native language. Measurements of the fundamental frequency and the first three formants were made for each vowel token. These measurements were then transformed into log frequency ratios and plotted as points in the three-dimensional auditory-perceptual space proposed by Miller (1989). Each vowel token was thus represented by one point, and the points corresponding to each vowel category were enclosed in three-dimensional target zones. For the present corpus, these zones differentiate the five vowels of Modern Greek with 100% accuracy, and the fourteen vowels of German with 94% accuracy. Implications for the distribution of common vowels across languages as a function of vowel density are discussed.