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Article published In: Diachronica
Vol. 31:2 (2014) ► pp.223–266

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The analysis of Westphalian German Spirantization

 | Indiana University
Published online: 5 August 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.31.2.03hal
Westphalian German Spirantization refers to the change from an original prevocalic long vowel to the corresponding short vowel plus fricative (i.e. [ɣ]). For example, the [ɪɣ] sequence in the Westphalian word [klɪɣə] “bran” derived historically from [iː]. The present article offers a new treatment for the historical shift from [iː] to [ɪɣ] — as well as similar ones involving other vowels — which breaks the process down into five separate changes. It is argued that each of these changes modified non-linear representations involving syllables, moras and segmental features. A crucial component of the proposed analysis is that each of the five changes is seen as a repair to a constraint.
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