“Problematic phonemes” and German /ɛ:/: An acoustic analysis

The decision to include or exclude phonemes in the description of a language is not always straightforward; presentations phoneme inventory Modern Standard German (MSG) often discussion why /ɛ:/ problematic as phoneme. This study describes acoustic realization comparison /e:/ spoken German, specifically South Westphalian. 39 native speakers produced and hVt non-word frames vowel productions were measured for: (1) first second formants from steady state vowel, (2) duration, (3) fundamental frequency (f0). Measurements analyzed with logistic regression model using glm package R. showed that while main effects F2, pitch significant, F1 was; reliably lower space than /e:/, but fronter. preliminary investigation into realizations through lens debate on whether these two sounds truly are phonetically phonemically contrastive step toward understanding within larger phonemic MSG. We hope this will reopen topic help answer question really