Resisting contact-induced sound change in Heritage Swiss German

Andrew Hoffman, Robert Klosinski, Richard Page & Michael T. Putnam, Penn State University (Thursday 11:30-12:00)

The obstruent series in Swiss German (as spoken in Switzerland) lack voicing contrasts. These consonants are instead differentiated on the basis of a FORTIS-LENIS opposition. Because neither voicing nor aspiration provide reliable phonetic cues for determining a consonant’s phonological status, the notions of articulatory strength and closure duration have been used to characterize the fortis-lenis distinction in Swiss German consonants. As ‘fortis’ consonants have longer closure durations than the relatively shorter ‘lenis’ consonants in Swiss German, the difference may therefore be viewed as one of a geminate-singleton distinction. While this distinction persists in Swiss German, it is unclear whether such a germinate-singleton contrast has been maintained among heritage speakers of the language in Ohio, given extensive linguistic contact with English. Of primary interest to this study is the phonetic realization of the inherited fortis/lenis plosives in Swiss and whether they maintain the geminate-singleton contrast or have undergone a contact-induced sound change to approximate their English counterparts. Preliminary results suggest that the Swiss plosives have resisted approximation in regards to closure duration, maintaining the unique fortis-lenis (i.e. geminate-singleton) distinction.

Kraehenmann & Lahiri (2008) found that this length contrast for obstruents can be found in all phonological positions (i.e. word-internally, -medially, and -finally) in Thurgovian Swiss German. Additionally, the differences in duration are the only reliable phonetic cues that signal an obstruent’s phonological fortis/lenis status. Similarly, Fleischer & Schmid (2006) confirmed Zurich Swiss German’s lack of voiced obstruents, with obstruents contrasting by closure duration instead. Contrary to the phonetic realization of obstruents in Swiss German, English plosives employ the feature [SPREAD GLOTTIS] to distinguish between phonologically ‘voiceless’ and ‘voiced’ plosives (e.g. orthographic <t> and <d>, respectively). In a context of widespread bilingualism and contact between two such systems, it would not be surprising to find the effects of contact-induced change in the heritage language.

Kidron, Ohio, in Wayne County is home to such a linguistic island of Swiss German speakers, descendants of Swiss emigrants from the Tramelan region in the Canton of Bern that came to Ohio in the early 19th century. These speakers have had significant contact with both English and Pennsylvania Dutch (PD) historically and contemporaneously, with all remaining Swiss speakers being English-Swiss bilinguals, with many exhibiting English linguistic dominance. Because neither English nor PD have duration contrasts in their obstruent series, the prolonged contact between languages may be hypothesized to have initiated a sound change in the moribund Swiss variety of the type approximation or complete transfer, as suggested by Babel (2008) and Zirak & Skaer (2013).

In this paper, we will present findings from two production tasks (word list and story-telling) and free discourse collected from 28 heritage speakers of this variety of Swiss German. To test the predictions of phonetic approximation/transfer, the phonetic realizations of inherited fortis/lenis plosives in Swiss will be analyzed to ascertain whether the geminate-singleton contrast has been maintained or if sound changes have occurred, as a result of contact with English (and to a lesser extent PD). Preliminary results from participant SG_20 (seen below) suggest that the Swiss plosives have resisted both approximation and complete transfer (i.e. assimilation) in regards to closure duration in an intervocalic environment, meaning that in such an environment, the areally unique fortis-lenis (i.e. geminate-singleton) distinction has been maintained. Similar to Kraehenmann (2001), preliminary data also shows that closure duration is a reliable phonetic determiner of phonological status. 101 67 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 geminate singleton SG_20 Intervocalic Closure Duration in ms.

Kraehenmann (2001)’s results from looking at voice onset time (VOT) in Swiss German obstruents showed that no significant difference in VOTs exists between geminates and singletons (i.e. fortis-lenis obstruents) indicating that neither voicing nor aspiration is contrastive. Our preliminary data show that voicing and aspiration may similarly be noncontrastive in our variety of heritage Swiss German, as shown in measurements of speaker SG_20, where the 6.7ms VOT difference between fortis-lenis plosives is likely not perceptible though additional measurements are needed to determine statistical significance. Furthermore, the contrast is maintained intervocalically in foot-internal position in SG unlike the participants’ English in which the contrast between /t/ and /d/ is neutralized and both are realized as [ɾ]. 19.7 13 05 10 15 20 25 geminate vot singleton vot SG_20 Intervocalic VOT for Geminates and Singletons in ms.

References

  • Babel, Molly. 2008. The phonetic and phonological effects of moribundity. Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 14.2, 24-34.
  • Fleischer, Jürg & Stephan Schmid. 2006. Zurich German. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36.2, 243-53.
  • Kraehenmann, Astrid. 2001. Swiss German stops: Geminates all over the word. Phonology, 18(1), 109-145.
  • Kraehenmann, Astrid & Aditi Lahiri. 2008. Duration differences in the articulation and acoustics of Swiss Ger-man word-initial geminate and singleton stops. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 123.6, 4446-55.
  • Zirak, Mahjoub & Peter Skaer. 2013. Contact-induced phonological mergers: Transfer or approximation. Inter-national Journal on Education 1.1, 100-6.