Swiss Alpine and Midland Intonation

The present paper discusses the intonational features of 3 Swiss German dialects: Valais Swiss German (WS), representing the Alpine variety, and Zurich (ZH) and Berne (BE) Swiss German, representing the Midland dialects. By application of the Fujisaki intonation model, 24 speakers of the mentioned dialects are investigated according to their global as well as local intonational features. The BE and WS show similar intonational features in 4 out of 9 observed variables. Yet the WS group seems to distinguish itself with a high pitch range; the BE, on the other hand, is especially characterized with a late pitch onset in local accents. The ZH speakers, in contrast, stand out in that they show distinct intonational features which are largely unparalleled in the other 2 dialects. The paper ends with an outlook of a practical extension to the Fujisaki model, the integration of a slow-rise component – a component introduced by Mixdorff in writing, yet never implemented into his Fujisaki parameter extraction program.