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A tonal semi-reversal in Franconian dialects: Rule A vs. Rule B
- Source: NOWELE. North-Western European Language Evolution, Volume 68, Issue 1, Jan 2015, p. 81 - 112
Abstract
This paper examines the genesis of a tonal semi-reversal in Franconian tone accent dialects, the so-called Rule A vs. Rule B. Contrary to the traditional assumption, the reversal takes place only under declarative intonation, but not in interrogatives. To account for the semi-reversal, I provide a scenario in which Rule A and Rule B derive from a common predecessor system, which I refer to as Rule 0. These novel findings have important consequences for our understanding of the accent genesis in general: I argue that a combination of my approach for the split with duration-based genesis scenarios leads to a plausible account. As the paper discusses in detail, it is problematic to adapt (previous) alternative proposals to the full data set.
© 2015 John Benjamins Publishing Company