On the perception of “segmental intonation”: F0 context effects on sibilant identification in German

EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing

Table 2 The three pairs of stimulus sentences used in the perception experiment

Vowel context (phonolg. short)	Question sentence	English translation	Target word and sibilant
[ı]	“Kaufst Du noch Viss?”	Will you buy Viss? (a well-known German detergent brand)	[fɪs]
[ı]	“Kaufst Du noch Fisch?”	Will you buy fish?	[fɪʃ]
[a]	“Hast Du einen Pass?”	Do you have a passport?	[p^has]
[a]	“Hast Du einen Pasch?”	Did you throw a doublet? (with dices)	[p^haʃ]
[ʊ]	“Siehst Du den Bus?”	Do you see the bus?	[ʊs]
[ʊ]	“Siehst Du den Busch?”	Do you see the bush?	[ʊʃ]

The pairs of sentences differ in the final target word or, more specifically, in the sentence-final sibilant. The experimentally relevant difference between the pairs concerns the short vowel preceding the sibilant. Underlining indicates nuclear pitch accents (solid lines) on the sentence-final target words and prenuclear pitch accents (dashed lines) on the sentence-initial verbs