Sound change or analogy? Monosyllabic lengthening in German and some of its consequences

Abstract

Although the vowels of many monosyllabic words have been lengthened from Middle High German to Modern Standard German (e.g., [glas] > ‘glass’), it has only recently (and sporadically) been considered that the lengthened forms might be due to a phonological change (cf. Naiditsch and Kusmenko 1992; Page 2001, 2007). Traditionally, vowel length in the relevant cases is explained on the basis of analogical-morphological principles such as paradigm uniformity. In the present paper we will defend the view that vowel length is the result of a genuine phonological change, namely monosyllabic lengthening. It will be argued that monosyllabic lengthening plays a crucial role in most High German dialects and the standard language, as positive evidence in favor of monosyllabic lengthening can be collected from all major dialect areas, not only from Upper German relic dialects. Furthermore, we will propose a typology of High German quantity developments based on five parameters (monosyllabic lengthening, open syllable lengthening, final degemination, total degemination, positional moraicity of coda consonants). This typology accounts for the dialect-specific outcomes of monosyllabic lengthening in words ending in a singleton, geminate, or cluster. Under this view, monosyllabic lengthening and open syllable lengthening are analyzed as two independent innovations which originated in different areas. If the proposal is correct, a number of interesting consequences for German historical phonology in general follow, such as the crucial role of moraicity of consonants, the irrelevance of voicing contrasts, the importance of word minimality, and the motivation for eliminating either consonantal or vocalic quantity contrasts. We conclude that the voicing contrast in Modern Standard German is a relatively recent re-instantiation of a former quantity contrast, most likely under the influence of Low German pronunciation.