Nasalization and Nasal Vowels in the Swabian Dialect of Horb: A Phonological Analysis of Kauffmann 1890

Abstract

Though phonemic nasal vowels are rare in Germanic languages, Swabian, a dialect spoken in southwestern Germany, exhibits nasal and oral vowel contrasts shaped by complex diachronic and synchronic processes. This work examines the phonemic system of Horb Swabian, based on a late-nineteenth-century grammar (Kauffmann 1890), tracing the inception of nasal vowels from Middle High German to the present through processes of Progressive Nasalization, Nasal-Fricative Avoidance, and Spontaneous Nasalization. The synchronic grammar of Horb Swabian is riddled with phonological opacity due to the interaction of Regressive Nasalization, Linking-n, and n-Deletion, and is characterized by height neutralization of nasalized vowels: Out of a four-height oral vowel system, a two-height nasal vowel system emerges. Rejecting underspecification and binary height features, I analyze these patterns using a classical optimality-theoretic framework, employing the Contrastive Hierarchy (Dresher 2009) and hierarchical vowel height (Clements 1991) while giving faithfulness constraints scope over features in line with an orthodox understanding of correspondence (McCarthy & Prince 1995). Not only does this work contribute to the field of German dialectology in illustrating the Swabian vowel system, it also enriches our understanding of opacity within Optimality Theory.