LL-L "Phonology" 2004.10.27 (10) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 27.OCT.2004 (10) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Christian Chiarcos <chiarcos at ling.uni-potsdam.de>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2004.10.27 (04) [E/LS]

Ron wrote:

> In some modern dialects, there is a distinction between monophthong
> [o:] and diphthong [o.U] ~ [a.U], and all of them distinguish monophthong
> [e:] ~ [E:] and diphthong [e.I] ~ [a.I]; e.g.,

When writing the tilde sign, do you suggest this to mean a dialectal
variation or something else ?

If the latter, I'd be interested in details: Though being neither a native
speaker nor a phonologist, I think we have very similar alternations in
North Markian/Central Pomeranian, but not due to dialectal variation but
prosodic prominence. (BTW: The orthography in the following examples is a
normalized version of a quasi-standard for texts from the Northern
Uckermark, consistently used by authors from Prenzlau. Here, tensed vowels
are doubled, untensed long vowels are written with h, tensed long i as ie)

As an example, asking what a kettle in LG is - and thus forcing narrow focus
on the word -, I got the response

_Jo, 'n kessel, dat is 'n KEETel up platt._

However, the long /e:/ here is etymologically not justified, the normal form
has a regular non-tensed <eh> /E:/ from MLG short e (I found that in
_kehtelflickers_).
In similar situations (informational foci and contrast foci) I observed
alternations between <oo> /o:/ and <ou> /O.U/ (_Dat weer man'n GOUD
bispael._) and <ie> /i:/ and <i"e> /i.@/ (_He is no Penkun föhrt, nich no
MENKIEN._), <oh> /O:/ and <oo> /o:/ (_Hest a no'n OOben kaeken ?_), etc.

I think this follows two simple rules:

- untensed long vowels <oh,eh,öh> become tensed <oo,ee,öö> if in focus
- tensed long vowels <oo,ee,öö,ie> become diphthongs <ou,ej,öi,i"e> if in
focus

However, this system was evidently not established before 1900, since in his
work ''Die vocale des mittelpommerschen dialects'' (1898), Pfaff states that
MLG ou, oeu, and ei were still preserved as /O.U/ (e.g. oust 'harvest', now
aust /a.Ust/), /ö.Y/ (e.g. höü 'hay', now /hO.I/) and /e.I/ (e.g. klein
'small', now /kla.I/).

So, my question is, are there similar tendencies in other areas ?

Regards,
Christian

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Phonology

Hi, Christian!

Thanks,  This is very interesting!  I am not aware of similar things
elsewhere.

My first hunch is that in these dialects phonemic diphthongs are
monophthongized in ordinatry speech mode, or that there is a
variety-specific rule that expresses heavy emphasis by means of
diphthongization.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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