Björn Köhnlein

Segmental Structure and Tone

This volume seeks to reevaluate the nature of tone-segment interactions in phonology. The contributions address, among other things, the following basic questions: what tone-segment interactions exist, and how can the facts be incorporated into phonological theory? Are interactions between tones and vowel quality really universally absent? What types of tone-consonant interactions do we find across languages? What is the relation between diachrony and synchrony in relevant processes? The contributions discuss data from various types of languages where tonal information plays a lexically distinctive role, from ‘pure’ tone languages to so-called tone accent systems, where the occurrence of contrastive tonal melodies is restricted to stressed syllables. The volume has an empirical emphasis on Franconian dialects in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, but also discusses languages as diverse as Slovenian, Livonian, Fuzhou Chinese, and Xhosa.

Synchronic alternations between monophthongs and diphthongs in Franconian tone accent dialects: a metrical approach

This paper proposes a synchronic analysis of vowel splits between diphthongs and monophthongs in Franconian tone accent dialects (spoken in parts of Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands). In some dialects, the tonal contrasts between Accent 1 and Accent 2 are accompanied by vocalic oppositions. On the basis of data from Maastricht and Sittard Franconian, I argue that a unified phonological analysis of these related phenomena (tone, vowel quality) is possible if we assume that the accents differ in their metrical structure: Accent 1 is represented as a disyllabic foot, Accent 2 as a monosyllabic foot.