1.1 Articulatory and acoustic aspects of lateral sounds

Lateral consonants are commonly defined as obstruents with a lingual constriction along the center line of the palate and openings for air flow at one or both sides of this constriction (Ladefoged & Maddieson Reference Ladefoged and Maddieson2008). In the world’s languages voiced alveolar laterals are the most common and have been described most thoroughly in terms of acoustics and articulation (Stevens Reference Stevens1998; Fant Reference Fant2012). In line with the object of this study, mainly alveolar laterals and their velarization will be discussed here. Additionally, retroflexion as a contrasting manner of articulation is shortly described, since it is necessary to differentiate between velarized and retroflex laterals when dealing with data from East Austrian German (see Section 1.3).

The alveolar lateral [l] and the velarized alveolar lateral [ɫ] exhibit a defining tongue gesture in which the tongue tip or tongue blade forms an occlusion in the alveolar to dental region. This configuration of the vocal tract together with glottis activity leads to a vowel-like formant structure when analyzed in the spectrogram (despite some differences in the expected formant values depending on the model; see Fant Reference Fant2012; Stevens Reference Stevens1998; Johnson Reference Johnson2008). The velarized alveolar lateral [ɫ] is characterized by an additional secondary gesture in which the tongue root is retracted towards the velum or pharyngeal wall. In terms of acoustics, the resulting longer back cavity leads to a comparatively low second formant (Sproat & Fujimura Reference Sproat and Fujimura1993; Narayanan et al. Reference Narayanan, Alwan and Haker1997). Therefore, in the absence of articulatory data, F2 is commonly used as the main acoustic parameter to determine the degree of velarization with lower F2 values corresponding to stronger velarization. Based on various European languages with a phonemic contrast between /l/ and /ɫ/, Recasens (Reference Recasens2012) describes an F2 of 1500–2000 Hz for /l/ and 800–1200 Hz for /ɫ/ as the typical ranges. By comparing Albanian with the Viennese dialect of German, Moosmüller et al. (Reference Moosmüller, Schmid and Kasess2016) showed that the phonological contrast between alveolar /l/ and velarized /ɫ/ in Albanian leads to a relatively clear-cut distribution of F2 values with /l/ exhibiting high (mean value of 1501 Hz) and /ɫ/ exhibiting low F2 values (mean value of 1069 Hz), while the single lateral phoneme in Viennese dialect exhibited variation along a continuum (see Section 1.4). Here we adopt the notion of velarization as a continuum from non-velarized to velarized.

While the focus of the present study is on the alveolar non-velarized to velarized continuum of Austrian German laterals, a brief note on retroflexion and the associated lateral consonant [ɭ] is warranted. Retroflex obstruents are characterized by a contact of the tongue tip or its underside in the postalveolar or palatal region. On basis of the English rhotic, Stevens (Reference Stevens1998) describes the acoustic effects of retroflexion as introducing a new resonance frequency between F2 and F3 at around 1800 Hz associated with the sublingual cavity formed by bending the tongue backwards. This new resonant frequency takes on the role of F3, resulting in a comparatively low F3 in close proximity to F2. At the same time a spectral zero is introduced at around 2000 Hz, weakening F3 and higher formants. F2 and F3 will be used here to differentiate retroflex laterals from velarized ones.

1.2 German in East Austria

The language situation in East Austria is commonly described as diaglossic (Auer Reference Auer, Delbecque, van der Auwera and Geeraerts2005) with Standard Austrian German (SAG) as the high prestige variety and various Bavarian dialects as lower prestige varieties. While SAG is very similar to the spoken Standard in Germany, it retains a variety of distinct features such as devoicing of the lax plosives /b/ and /d/ and the use of /ɛ/ instead of /ə/ in unstressed syllables, to name but two examples (Moosmüller et al. Reference Moosmüller, Schmid and Brandstätter2015). The Bavarian dialects maintain numerous phonological differences compared to SAG, but varieties are in constant contact. The vast majority of speakers in Austria have at least some command over both SAG and one or more dialectal varieties. Especially in East Austria code mixing and code switching is commonplace dependent on pragmatic factors (Moosmüller Reference Moosmüller1991; Soukup Reference Soukup2009).

In this study, the varieties under investigation are the Bavarian base dialects of East Austria. The term ‘base dialect’ is used in the context of Austrian German to specifically denote ‘the most ancient, rural, conservative dialect’ (Auer Reference Auer, Delbecque, van der Auwera and Geeraerts2005: 8–9) to distinguish it from other non-standard varieties. With the exception of the Alemannic speaking federal state of Vorarlberg, the Austrian German dialects are classified as part of the Bavarian dialects. The city of Vienna is regarded as the Eastern center of the Central Bavarian (CB) dialect region due to its position as cultural and political capital of Austria. Since the twelfth century, this manifests itself linguistically in the spread of Viennese features across the whole region, especially along the Danube River (Wiesinger Reference Wiesinger1983, Reference Wiesinger and Russ1990). The Central Bavarian dialect area can be further divided into a Western and Eastern part. Upper Austria houses several dialectal isoglosses forming a transition zone between Western Central Bavarian (WCB) in the Innviertel region in Upper Austria and Flachgau region in Salzburg (continuing to Germany to the West) and Eastern Central Bavarian (ECB) in most of Lower Austria, Vienna and Northern Burgenland (Lenz Reference Lenz2019; Wiesinger Reference Wiesinger and Russ1990). To the South lies a broad transition zone towards the South Bavarian dialect region referred to as South Central Bavarian (SCB). In East Austria, the SCB region encompasses most of Styria and Middle and Southern Burgenland and exhibits a gradual and locally individual change between historically younger Central Bavarian and older South Bavarian characteristics. Naturally, speakers of this linguistically dynamic region tend to have a comparatively broad repertoire of dialectal variants. While some typical Central Bavarian features like /l/-vocalization (see Section 1.3) have become considerably more common in the Northern parts of the region (Vollmann et al. Reference Vollmann, Hobel, Seifter and Pokorny2017), other features like the second Viennese Monophthongization seem to progress at a slower rate if at all (Vergeiner et al. Reference Vergeiner, Jan Luttenberger, Wallner and Britain2023). Note that the regional categorization of the Bavarian dialects as outlined above heavily relies on the assumption of stable rural base dialects, which they are likely not. Nevertheless, since the present study was designed to assess the base dialectal end of the varietal spectrum as closely as possible, we still use it as a guideline, however, with some modification of grouping the locations according to geographic closeness (see Section 2.2). Since to date, /l/-velarization has mainly been treated as a feature of Viennese dialect, the focus of the present study is on East Austria and the areas adjacent to Vienna rather than covering all of Austria. In addition to the Central Bavarian area a number of locations in Northeast Styria and Burgenland in the South Central Bavarian area were included, since historically this region has also regularly adopted Central Bavarian features in its base dialects.

Table 1. Overview over the variants of /l/ throughout East Austria. Numbers in the first column refer to the more detailed description below. The column /l/-Variant gives the respective IPA symbols, Context the phonotactic context in which the variant occurs. Region describes the approximate geographical distribution, Variety whether the variant occurs in standard or dialect and Reference gives a reference in the literature where the given allophone is mentioned

1.3 Laterals in East Austrian German varieties

As mentioned at the beginning, German is considered to have only a single lateral consonant phoneme realized as alveolar [l] (for Germany, see e.g., Kohler Reference Kohler1990; for Austria see Moosmüller et al. Reference Moosmüller, Schmid and Brandstätter2015). In Standard German the quality of adjacent vowels has been suggested to influence the realization of [l] as briefly noted in the textbook of Neppert & Pétursson (Reference Neppert and Pétursson1992) as well as in two small-scale studies reporting four speakers from Bavaria and Swabia (Recasens et al. Reference Recasens, Fontdevila and Dolors Pallarès1995) and four speakers from Berlin (Recasens Reference Recasens2012). Back vowels adjacent to the lateral consonant lead to a lowering in F2, in line with velarization. Recasens (Reference Recasens2012) reports F2 values ranging from 1734 Hz in /ili/ to 1316 Hz in /ala/.

When it comes to the varieties of German in East Austria, the realization of the phoneme /l/ shows considerable variation depending on phonological context as well as the specific language variety. The alveolar lateral consonant [l] is regarded as the default realization of the phoneme /l/, which alternates allophonically with the velarized alveolar lateral [ɫ], the retroflexed lateral [ɭ] and the palatal or velar laterals [ʎ] and [ʟ]. Furthermore, in Central Bavarian dialects (as opposed to South Central Bavarian dialects), /l/ is deleted or replaced by an [ɪ̯]-like vowel in a process commonly referred to as /l/-vocalization. The different variants that have been mentioned with regard to the Austrian German lateral are summarized in Table 1 and further described below.

1. 1) Velarized alveolar [ɫ] has been described as socially marked Viennese variant of alveolar /l/ (see Section 1.4).

2. 2) The palatal lateral consonant [ʎ] formed with the back of the tongue or the velar consonant [ʟ] formed with the tongue root can appear as an assimilatory product after the palatal and velar consonants /ɡ/, /k/, [ç] and [x] (Moosmüller et al. Reference Moosmüller, Schmid and Kasess2016). This process has been described for historical Standard German in Vienna at the beginning of the twentieth century by Luick (Reference Luick1996: 65). Moosmüller (Reference Moosmüller2016) also assumes such an assimilation for Viennese dialect but suggests the palatalized alveolar lateral [lʲ].

3. 3) The retroflex lateral consonant [ɭ] may be used in consonant clusters after labial consonants, and after back vowels and /a/ both in SAG (Luick Reference Luick1996: 44–45) and Viennese dialect (Moosmüller Reference Moosmüller2016). In Eastern Central Bavarian dialect, retroflex [ɭ] also appears in ambisyllabic word-medial position (e.g., /tøɭːɐ/ Teller ‘plate’)Footnote ¹ . Additionally, in the South Central Bavarian dialects of Styria and Burgenland, [ɭ] is also found in syllable coda position, contrasting with the /l/-vocalization (see below) of the Central Bavarian dialects (Kranzmayer Reference Kranzmayer1956).

4. 4) In Eastern Central Bavarian dialects, /l/ in syllable coda position is subjected to the so-called ‘/l/-vocalization’: /l/ is not realized as a consonant, but either as an [ɪ]-like element forming a diphthong with the preceding vowel after back vowels (e.g. /hoɪ̯t͡s/ Holz ‘wood’) or omitted while the preceding vowel is rounded after front vowels (e.g. /myç/ Milch ‘milk’). In unstressed syllables, /l/-vocalization does not apply to /l/ after alveolar phones, where /l/ is realized as a syllabic lateral consonant [l̩] and may be velarized to [ɫ̩] (e.g. /sesːl̩/ Sessel ‘chair’). Furthermore, /l/ is not vocalized in diminutive forms like /ɡ̊lasl̩/ or /ɡ̊lasɐl/ Glaserl ‘small glass, cup’, where /l/ is either syllabic or preceded by /ɐ/ (see Kranzmayer Reference Kranzmayer1956: 120–121; Wiesinger Reference Wiesinger and Russ1990: 459, 463 for more extensive overviews).

It has to be noted, that thorough phonetic descriptions of laterals in Austrian German varieties are sparse. Especially in older literature on regional variation, descriptions of laterals tend to be impressionistic and use heterogeneous terminology with regard to the articulatory and acoustic properties of laterals. This may lead to confusion if not read carefully and critically (see the discussion in Pauritsch Reference Pauritsch1984 as an example for the struggle with articulatory descriptions and their interpretations). Aside from the recent studies of Moosmüller et al. (Reference Moosmüller, Schmid and Kasess2016) and Schmid et al. (Reference Schmid, Moosmüller and Kasess2017) focusing on the differentiation between the alveolar realization [l] and [ɫ] in Viennese dialect, the descriptions of lateral realizations in the existing literature rely solely on auditory judgments and introspection. While we deem the descriptions summed up above reasonably reliable, they might prove to be inaccurate or incomplete in the light of improved methodology and technical possibilities. In the context of this study, this is especially important in the distinction between velarized [ɫ] and retroflex [ɭ]. Both have been referred to as dunkel ‘dark’ and their differentiation was accomplished by references to vowel qualities, for instance, in Kranzmayer (Reference Kranzmayer1956) as u-haltig ‘/u/-containing’ for [ɫ] versus ü-haltig ‘/y/-containing’ for [ɭ]. Importantly, in spectrographic analyses those phones can be differentiated by the relative location of the second and third formants (see Section 2.4.1). While the investigation of retroflexion and its interaction with other realizations of laterals presents a desideratum on its own, it is beyond the scope of the present paper. Hence, only velarized laterals in the Central Bavarian dialects (CB) of East Austria will be discussed in detail below.

1.4 Velarization in the context of non-standard varieties of German in East Austria

As of now, /l/-velarization has been discussed almost exclusively in the context of Viennese dialect, which has been described as less of a spatial non-standard variety, but more of a socially differentiating variety (Moosmüller Reference Moosmüller1987). In that context, /l/-velarization has been described as a rather salient feature of lower-class speech, where it was historically observed since the beginning of the twentieth century in Vienna (Koekkoek Reference Koekkoek1953; Kranzmayer Reference Kranzmayer1956). /l/-velarization in Vienna is often associated with the influx of Czech-speaking migrants from Bohemia during the nineteenth and early twentieth century (e.g., Moosmüller et al. Reference Moosmüller, Schmid and Kasess2016), but this view has been debated (e.g., Pohl Reference Pohl, Hans Goebl, Nelde and Wölck1997) since Czech unlike many other Slavic languages only features a single lateral phoneme tending towards a clear apico-alveolar pronunciation (but see, e.g., Šimáčková Reference Šimáčková2009, for a discussion of complex dialectal variation). Due to the lack of historically oriented phonetic studies, the debate on the origin of velarized [ɫ] in Vienna remains inconclusive by now and would also go beyond the scope of the present study. In Viennese dialect in the second half of the twentieth century and later, [ɫ] is reported to occupy a number of phonotactically defined positions as Moosmüller et al. (Reference Moosmüller, Schmid and Kasess2016) found in recordings of homeless people from the 1970s:

• word-initially, for example /ˈlæːd̥ɛr/ → [ˈɫæːdɑ] leider ‘unfortunately’;

• after alveolar and postalveolar consonants, for example /ˈsæːd̥ɛl/ → [ˈsæːɫ̩] Seidel ‘small glass of beer’ or /ˈʃlɔːɡ̊ɛn/ → [ˈʃɫɔːŋ̩] schlagen ‘to beat’;

• in the vicinity of back vowels, for example /ˈholɛr/ → [ˈhoɫɑ] Holler ‘elder’.

  […] if velarization occurs, it only and without exception occurs in the above-mentioned contexts, and never after bilabial or velar consonants (Moosmüller et al. Reference Moosmüller, Schmid and Kasess2016: 491–492).

Therefore, Moosmüller et al. (Reference Moosmüller, Schmid and Kasess2016) suggest that [ɫ] might have completely supplanted [l] (but not [ɭ] after labial and velar sounds) as the lateral phoneme in Viennese dialect. However, the empirical results in Moosmüller et al. (Reference Moosmüller, Schmid and Kasess2016) do not support this hypothesis since female speakers hardly use any velarized laterals and male speakers only in the phonetic context of back vowels. Similar results are reported in Schmid et al. (Reference Schmid, Moosmüller and Kasess2017): Velarized [ɫ] as defined by an absolute F2 of <1300 Hz was only used in 63% of word-initial and 68% word-final laterals when uttered by male speakers. Female speakers used even fewer tokens of velarized [ɫ] with only 6% in word-initial and 46% in word-final position. While contradicting a complete shift towards [ɫ] in Viennese dialect these findings reveal a preference for velarization in word-final position and considerable differences between male and female speakers. As an explanation for the differences in gender Schmid et al. (Reference Schmid, Moosmüller and Kasess2017: 102–103) suggest that women avoid the Viennese dialect due to its low prestige.

Regarding perception, [ɫ] stands as an index for Viennese dialect as a whole, and Viennese speakers are expected to exhibit velarized laterals in order to be recognized as Viennese: Moosmüller (Reference Moosmüller2012) used the recordings of actors trying to speak Viennese dialect to test whether listeners both from Vienna and elsewhere in Austria would notice the absence of [ɫ], but also misapplications of /l/-velarization. These misapplications included the contexts mentioned above in which retroflex [ɭ] would be expected. Both absence and misapplication of [ɫ] resulted in less favorable ratings regarding authenticity of the speaker as genuine Viennese.

Outside of Vienna, the status of /l/-velarization remains largely unaddressed so far. Despite the heavy focus on Vienna in the existing literature, [ɫ] is also briefly mentioned in descriptions of local dialects in Lower Austria (Brunbauer Reference Brunbauer1956) and Upper Austria (Keller Reference Keller1961). There, [ɫ] is reported to occur in word-final position and its acoustic impression is compared to the ‘dark’ lateral in English. For these (sparse) early accounts, a spread from the urban Viennese dialect into the mentioned local rural dialects seems unlikely. In contrast to these remote locations, a recent small-scale study of seven speakers (Rausch-Supola et al. Reference Rausch-Supola, Moosmüller, Leykum, Schmid and Luttenberger2022) found [ɫ] in the local dialect of speakers from Neunkirchen, a small town in Lower Austria (around 12,500 inhabitants) 60 km to the South of Vienna. Neunkirchen is part of an old industrial region with direct railway access to Vienna since the first half of the nineteenth century (Harather Reference Harather2019), hence linguistic influence from Vienna would be possible for this location. However, while a historical spread could not be shown with these data, the study on Neunkirchen provides some acoustic measurements. According to the categorization of /l/ as velarized with an absolute F2 $\lt =$ 1300 Hz, male speakers in Neunkirchen produced around 85% of their laterals in both word-initial and word-final position as [ɫ]. For female speakers, around 12% of word-initial and 63% of word-final laterals were found to be velarized. However, male and female speakers also differed in age. The male speakers were at least forty-five and the female speakers were largely around seventeen years old. Due to this confound, the results of Rausch-Supola et al. (Reference Rausch-Supola, Moosmüller, Leykum, Schmid and Luttenberger2022) have to be interpreted with caution. Nevertheless, the few existing previous studies on /l/-velarization show that the phenomenon is not areally limited to the city of Vienna but also present in the non-standard varieties of the Eastern Central Bavarian dialect region in Upper and Lower Austria. Therefore, it might be a more general ECB feature than previously thought, but in the absence of comprehensive studies this remains to be tested.

1.5 Research questions

As can be inferred from the previous section, lateral allophony seems common in Austrian German, yet a comprehensive account on /l/-velarization outside of Vienna is missing. With Vienna and Neunkirchen only two urban areas have been studied, and these are the only studies where acoustic parameters have been measured. Those studies will serve as a point of reference for studying rural varieties around Vienna in Lower Austria and reaching into adjacent dialect areas. This will allow for a (re)evaluation of dialectological descriptions dating back to the first half of the twentieth century (e.g. Kranzmayer Reference Kranzmayer1956; Brunbauer Reference Brunbauer1956) with acoustic measurements. Furthermore, the German varieties of East Austria present the opportunity to investigate different lateral consonants in the same language, which do not contrast phonemically, but allophonically. As mentioned above, the focus of the present study will be on the alveolar non-velarized to velarized continuum.

Firstly, the present study assesses the areal distribution of /l/-velarization, since so far it has been associated mainly with Viennese non-standard varieties. Secondly, it will assess the contrast between laterals in word-initial and word-final position, since this contrast in position has been found to be an important factor in other Germanic languages including English and is hinted at in the existing studies on Austrian German. Lastly, speaker gender and age (an older vs. a younger group) are investigated as additional social factors. This is because the existing studies on /l/-velarization found male speakers to use [ɫ] more frequently compared to female speakers and age group may offer insights on whether the usage of [ɫ] might differ (or even change) between generations. Specifically, this study addresses the following questions:

• Regional distribution: Can we observe /l/-velarization outside of Vienna? If so, is /l/-velarization more common close to Vienna, so as to suggest a spread from the city into its vicinity throughout Central Bavarian dialects? Moreover, does the direction (East-to-West and East-to-South) from Vienna towards different bordering dialect areas influence the use of velarized /l/?

• Linguistic factors: What influence has word-initial vs. word-final position on the articulation of laterals in Austrian German? Can we observe the presence or absence of a complementary distribution similar to varieties of English and other European languages?

• Social factors: Do we see any tendencies related to female vs. male speakers? Can we observe a difference between two generations of speakers?

As for the regional distribution, distance from Vienna (in kilometers by street) was used as a readily available parameter to roughly estimate whether Vienna could be the origin of /l/-velarization. However, since distance does not necessarily equal connectedness, this approach has limitations with regard to a sociolinguistic perspective (see Britain Reference Britain, Chambers, Trudgill and Schilling-Estes2002 for a discussion of space as a factor in language variation), yet it should provide first insights into this issue.

As for linguistic factors, another potentially relevant factor might be the immediate phonetic context of the lateral (see e.g., Recasens Reference Recasens2012). In practice, however, the exact phrasing of items varied across speakers, which led to variation in the phonetic context preceding the lateral. For example, in the single word translation task, speakers would occasionally include personal pronouns in their utterances when providing conjugated forms of a verbal paradigm, for instance, /d̥ulest/ du liest ‘read 2.SG’, where the lateral then would be preceded by the vowel /u/ rather than a pause. Since this was not controlled for in the recordings, phonetic context was not adopted as a variable.

Finally, with regard to social factors, the number of available speakers per gender and age group was restricted by the corpus (see Section 2.1). Therefore, conclusions about the social stratification of /l/-velarization for single locations have to be taken with caution. Over the whole area, the present study may serve as a vantage point for further studies, since it provides formant values as reference for a range of different female and male speakers, addressing the lack of available data so far. By including two generations, we can give a first general overview over recent developments in the base dialect in the sense of the apparent-time paradigm (Chambers Reference Chambers, Chambers, Trudgill and Schilling-Estes2002).