An analysis of post-vocalic /s-ʃ/ neutralization in Augsburg German: evidence for a gradient sound change.

Vã©Ronique Bukmaier,Felicitas Kleber,Jonathan Harrington

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00828

Vã©Ronique Bukmaier, Felicitas Kleber + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00828

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Abstract

The study is concerned with a sound change in progress by which a post-vocalic, pre-consonantal /s-ʃ/ contrast in the standard variety of German (SG) in words such as west/wäscht (/vɛst/~/vɛʃt/, west/washes) is influencing the Augsburg German (AG) variety in which they have been hitherto neutralized as /veʃt/. Two of the main issues to be considered are whether the change is necessarily categorical; and the extent to which the change affects both speech production and perception equally. For the production experiment, younger and older AG and SG speakers merged syllables of hypothetical town names to create a blend at the potential neutralization site. These results showed a trend for a progressively greater /s-ʃ/ differentiation in the order older AG, younger AG, and SG speakers. For the perception experiment, forced-choice responses were obtained from the same subjects who had participated in the production experiment to a 16-step /s-ʃ/ continuum that was embedded into two contexts: /mIst-mIʃt/ in which /s-ʃ/ are neutralized in AG and /və'mIsə/-/və'mIʃə/ in which they are not. The results from both experiments are indicative of a sound change in progress such that the neutralization is being undone under the influence of SG, but in such a way that there is a gradual shift between categories. The closer approximation of the groups on perception suggests that the sound change may be more advanced on this modality than in production. Overall, the findings are consistent with the idea that phonological contrasts are experience-based, i.e., a continuous function of the extent to which a subject is exposed to, and makes use of, the distinction and are thus compatible with exemplar models of speech.

Highlights

The present study forms part of a series of investigations (e.g., Kleber, 2011; Müller et al, 2011; Harrington et al, 2012) into dialect leveling in High German varieties under the influence of Standard German (SG)
The significant effect for group is a confirmation of the evidence in Figure 2 that there is a trend from older Augsburg German (AG) to younger AG to standard variety of German (SG) speakers for /st/ to be progressively closer to /s/
The clearest consistency is in the effect of variety: with the possible exception of older listeners on the vermi[s/ ]e continuum, there is strong evidence that the slopes are steeper for the SG compared with the AG listeners

Summary

Introduction

The present study forms part of a series of investigations (e.g., Kleber, 2011; Müller et al, 2011; Harrington et al, 2012) into dialect leveling in High German varieties under the influence of Standard German (SG). The present investigation deals with the association between the post-vocalic /s- / contrast before /t/ in SG West/washes) and the Augsburg variety of German (AG) in which, at least for older, but possibly not for younger speakers, the distinction is collapsed such that these minimal pairs are neutralized as a post-alveolar fricative (i.e., /wε t/ for both West and wäscht). In Standard German, the contemporary /s- /-contrast emerged as a consequence of various sound changes. The OHG /z/ later changed into the contemporary Standard German / / (Renn and König, 2009).

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