Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Page 96

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Toward the phonetic description of Faroese vowels
very distinctly, the long vowels in Faroese strike a Danish
ear as gliding in comparison with the Danish long vowels
of very fixed quality. It remains to be investigated which
factors contribute to this impression. The tendency of glide
is clearly manifested only in certain environments (the
specific problems associated with monophthongal vowel
quality before [a] are not considered in this paper).
Such phonetic problems as those mentioned here are
difficult to settle upon on an impressionistic (auditory)
basis, and they are not quite easily solved by examining
the articulation because of the inherent difficulties in regi*
stering the exact position and shape of the tongue in rela*
tively open sounds (for exact measurements X=ray photos
graphy must be used). Problems of this kind are, on the
other hand, eminently suited for acoustic investigation, and
the present author has done some preparatory work to see
if it is possible by this kind of approach to shed light on
some of the points of indeterminacy or disagreement. The
material hitherto analysed is rather restricted, and at pre*
sent no safe acoustic generalizations about Faroese can be
made. Nevertheless it seems to me worth while to present
some of the data in order to scetch how the problems may
be attacked in future investigation.
It may not be entirely superfluous to describe briefly the
acoustic phonetic method which is suitable for this purpose,
i. e. the spectrographic method.
The voice used in producing vowel sounds contains a
large number of partial tones, the most important of which
are located at frequencies between 200 cps. (Hertz) and
3—4000 cps. The cavities in mouth and nose resonate and
thus reinforce the partials at particular frequencies, so that
there is for each vowel a concentration of sound energy
in particular frequency bands. The frequencies of these
frequency bands or formants are most expediently mea*
sured on a sonagraph (the data given below were measured
by means of the KeyÆIectric Sonagraph of the Institute