An acoustic study of /r/-vocalization in word-final position

It is generally acknowledged that the low schwa []2 is the most common realization of German /r / if it is produced in the coda of a syllable. Since auditorily this sound is very close to [a] one aim of this study was to investigate whether – based on acoustic data – the sequence /ar / differs from long /a/. Therefore, an acoustical analysis of contrasting words like Saar- “Saar ” (river in Germany), sah- “saw”, sehr- “very ” and Visier- “visor ” has been carried out by recording three male and three female speakers of Northern German. We analysed the frequencies of the first three formants and the vowel durations. The results can be summarized as follows: (1) after /a/, no change in quality could be found in F1 and F3, however F2 showed a significant falling transition, (2) the formant frequencies of [] varied with the preceding vowel and (3) no differences in duration could be found. With regard to the results, we conclude that the slight falling transition in F2 is not diphthongal but is nevertheless a change in quality of the vowel