Contrastive foot structure in Franconian tone-accent dialects*. Issue 1 (15th June 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Köhnlein, Björn
• Is Part Of: Phonology. Volume 33:Issue 1(2016)
• Page Start: 87
• Page End: 123
• Publication Date: 2016-06-15
• Subjects: Grammar, Comparative and general -- Phonology -- Periodicals; 414.05
• DOI: 10.1017/S095267571600004X
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0952-6757

Abstract

Abstract : Franconian has a contrast between two tone accents, commonly referred to as Accent 1 and Accent 2. Traditional autosegmental analyses of the phenomenon suggest that this opposition derives from the presence of lexical tone. In contrast to this 'tonal approach', I argue that the Franconian accent contrast is based on contrastive foot structure – there is no tone in the lexicon. This 'metrical approach' not only accounts for the tonal differences between the accents, but also captures a variety of facts that are hard to incorporate into a synchronic tonal analysis, involving morphological alternations between Accent 1 and Accent 2, as well as the effects of vowel duration, vowel quality and consonant quality on accent-class membership. The metrical analysis of these patterns is in line with similar approaches to tone-accent contrasts in North Germanic and Scottish Gaelic.