An Acoustic Analysis of /r/ in Tyrolean

Abstract

This paper offers a preliminary contribution to the phonetic description and acoustic characterization of /r/ allophony in Tyrolean dialect, an under-researched South Bavarian Dialect spoken in the North of Italy. The analysis of target words containing /r/ in different phonotactic contexts, produced by six Tyrolean female speakers, confirms the high degree of intraspeaker variation in the production of /r/ with a uvular place of articulation. The distributional analysis of the allophones in our sample shows a preference among all the speakers for a fricative manner of articulation followed by approximants and taps and, to a lesser extent, by trills (with a very small amount of vocalized variants). These results are in line with previous research in the South-Tyrolean community. Due to the high variability of rhotic sounds, we further investigate and report on some of their shared acoustic features such as duration across the different phonotactic contexts and Harmonics-to-Noise Ratio for the different allophones attested.

Which Language R You Speaking? /r/ as a Language Marker in Tyrolean and Italian Bilinguals

“…Our recent sociophonetic work concentrates on /r/ variation among bilinguals in the Italian region of South Tyrol, the most northern province of Italy (Galatà, Spreafico, Vietti, & Kaland, 2016; Kaland, Galatà, Spreafico, & Vietti, 2016; Vietti, Spreafico, & Galatà, 2015). The major languages spoken in this area are Tyrolean, a Bavarian dialect of German (Wiesinger, 1990), and Italian.…”

“…The distributional data available on /r/ variation in South Tyrolean bilinguals are limited. A few studies have investigated groups of one, two, six, or 11 speakers with homogeneous linguistic backgrounds, focusing on either Tyrolean or Italian speech (Galatà et al, 2016; Vietti, 2010; Vietti et al, 2015). An investigation of /r/ variants produced in both languages by larger groups of bilingual speakers with varying linguistic backgrounds is lacking.…”