Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2020 Consonant Quantity and Positional Neutralisation – Heusler’s Law and Winteler’s Law in Zurich German Würth, Kathrin Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-186455 Dissertation Published Version Originally published at: Würth, Kathrin. Consonant Quantity and Positional Neutralisation – Heusler’s Law and Winteler’s Law in Zurich German. 2020, University of Zurich, Faculty of Arts. Consonant Quantity and Positional Neutralisation Heusler’s Law and Winteler’s Law in Zurich German Thesis presented to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of the University of Zurich for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Kathrin Würth Accepted in the spring semester 2019 on the recommendation of Prof. Dr. Stephan Schmid and Prof. Dr. Elvira Glaser Zurich, 2020 Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 6 1. Preliminary remarks on Zurich German ...................................................................... 10 1.1. Linguistic classification ........................................................................................ 10 1.2. Zurich German: sub-varieties and neighbouring dialects ..................................... 12 1.3. Sociolinguistic status ........................................................................................... 14 1.4. Literature on Swiss German dialects ................................................................... 16 2. The Zurich German sound system ............................................................................. 18 2.1. A preliminary note on the transcription................................................................. 18 2.2. Vowels................................................................................................................. 20 2.3. Consonants ......................................................................................................... 22 2.3.1. Obstruents ........................................................................................................... 23 2.3.2. Sonorant consonants ........................................................................................... 27 2.4. Phonological processes ....................................................................................... 40 2.4.1. Assimilation ......................................................................................................... 41 2.4.2. Linking-n .............................................................................................................. 44 2.4.3. Heusler’s Law ...................................................................................................... 45 2.4.4. Winteler’s Law ..................................................................................................... 48 2.4.5. Monosyllabic Lengthening ................................................................................... 52 2.5. Summary ............................................................................................................. 53 3. The fortis/lenis distinction ........................................................................................... 55 3.1. fortis/lenis: from Winteler to the SPE ................................................................... 56 3.2. Alternatives to the feature pair fortis/lenis (Lisker & Abramson 1964) .................. 59 3.3. fortis/lenis as a durational contrast ...................................................................... 62 3.4. Summary ............................................................................................................. 64 4. Geminates .................................................................................................................. 66 4.1. On the term “geminate” ....................................................................................... 67 4.2. On the representation of geminates ..................................................................... 68 4.2.1. Length vs weight ................................................................................................. 73 4.3. Zurich German geminates ................................................................................... 88 2 Contents 4.3.1. Monosyllabic lengthening (MSL) and word minimality .......................................... 91 4.3.2. Additional evidence for moraic consonants in Zurich German ............................. 97 4.3.3. Onset geminates? ............................................................................................... 99 4.4. Zurich German syllable structure and syllabification ...........................................103 4.5. Summary ............................................................................................................109 5. Neutralisation ............................................................................................................111 5.1. Key concepts of neutralisation ............................................................................111 5.1.1. Trubetzkoy and the archiphoneme .....................................................................112 5.1.2. Constraint-based approaches .............................................................................117 5.1.3. Incomplete neutralisation ....................................................................................119 5.1.4. On the function of neutralisation: Silverman (2012) ............................................123 5.1.5. Summary ............................................................................................................125 5.2. Neutralisation of suprasegmental contrasts ........................................................126 5.2.1. Heusler’s Law in a segmental analysis ...............................................................127 5.2.2. Heusler’s Law as prosodic neutralisation ............................................................130 5.2.3. Neutralisation in a skeletal framework: Kraehenmann (2003) .............................131 5.2.4. Neutralisation in Moraic Theory ..........................................................................139 5.2.5. Summary ............................................................................................................153 6. Phonetic measurements ............................................................................................157 6.1. Previous studies .................................................................................................158 6.2. Method ...............................................................................................................164 6.2.1. Research questions ............................................................................................164 6.2.2. Speakers ............................................................................................................168 6.2.3. Corpus................................................................................................................169 6.2.4. Recordings and data analysis .............................................................................170 6.3. Results ...............................................................................................................175 6.3.1. Stops ..................................................................................................................176 6.3.2. Fricatives ............................................................................................................203 6.3.3. Summary Heusler’s Law .....................................................................................218 6.3.4. Sonorants ...........................................................................................................220 6.3.5. Summary Winteler’s Law ....................................................................................231 7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................234 References .........................................................................................................................238 Contents 3 List of Tables ......................................................................................................................257 List of Figures .....................................................................................................................259 Appendix ...........................................................................................................................261 I. Estimates ..................................................................................................................262 i. Stops ..................................................................................................................262 ii. Fricatives ............................................................................................................265 iii. Sonorants ...........................................................................................................266 II. Word list ....................................................................................................................268