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In:Varieties of German in Contact Settings: Studies in honor of William D. Keel
Edited by B. Richard Page and Michael T. Putnam
[Studies in Germanic Linguistics 10] 2025
► pp. 131–156

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Chapter 7
Avoiding (total) collapse

On the potential role of maintaining differences between heritage language phonological systems

 | IGS Schöppenstedt
 | Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg
Published online: 27 November 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/sigl.10.07kl
Abstract
Research on the phonetics-phonology continuum in heritage language grammars over the past three decades has delivered valuable and lasting insights into the development of these grammatical systems throughout their speakers’ lifespans (Celata 2019; Chang 2019, 2021). The central aim of this chapter is to highlight the importance of a less recognized factor in the development of heritage language grammars, namely the notion of maintaining differences between phonological components of the heritage L1 and any additional competing grammars. We emphasize that heritage languages might not always show evidence for assimilatory processes towards the dominant language, as in many phenomena described as phonetic/phonological attrition or as phonetic drift in the literature. Our explorative investigation of a phonological process in Bernese Swiss German spoken in Misiones, Argentina (MBSG) shows that /nd/-velarization is being lost in this variety upon contact with Spanish. Yet, this language contact process is not indicative of an assimilatory process, i.e., (unidirectional) transfer from Spanish. Rather than completely assimilating their heritage language to Spanish, MBSG speakers tend to produce syllable rhymes in MBSG that do not occur in Spanish. We suggest that the change in this phonological process could be explained as a case of maintaining differentiation between the heritage L1 and other grammars. In addition, we sketch a formal account — an OT-analysis — in which we relate the grammars of two languages in contact in one formal model. Here, we propose a meta-constraint, OCP-Bilingual, to capture the proposed maintenance of inter-language differences between the syllable structure in the heritage language (MBSG) and the dominant language (Spanish).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Empirical considerations
    • 2.1European Bernese Swiss German (EBSG)
    • 2.2Spanish
    • 2.3Methodology: Data elicitation for Misiones Bernese Swiss German (MBSG)
      • 2.3.1Data elicitation methods at Time Point 1
      • 2.3.2Data elicitation methods at Time Point 2
      • 2.3.3Data elicitation methods at Time Point 3
    • 2.4Results
      • 2.4.1Results at Time Point 1
      • 2.4.2Results at Time Point 2
      • 2.4.3Results at Time Point 3
    • 2.5Discussion
  • 3.OT analysis
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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