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Phonologisches Gewicht, Binarität von Füßen und Unmarkiertheit koronaler Nasallaute im schweizerdeutschen Dialekt von Visperterminen (wie von Wipf 1910 beschrieben)

2023; Volume: 90; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.25162/zdl-2023-0006

2366-2395

Erin Noelliste,

Linguistics and language evolution

This paper discusses Visperterminen German, a Swiss German dialect described by Wipf (1910), in which every sonorant consonant except /n/ geminates word-finally after a short, stressed vowel to create feet which are binary on the moraic level. The coronal nasal /n/ also undergoes several rules, including assimilation and deletion, which affect no other sonorant consonants. I claim that the unique behavior of /n/ is evidence that the coronal nasal is less marked than the other sonorant consonants in Visperterminen German. The paper contributes to the literature on markedness, where coronals are often argued to be unmarked in relation to labial and dorsal segments (Paradis and Prunet 1991, Lombardi 2002) and shows that deletion is a diagnostic for unmarked segments (Rice 2007) and not marked segments (de Lacy 2006).