Felicitas Kleber (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)

Age-dependent differences in the maintenance and neutralization of phonological contrasts in regional varieties of German:

Evidence from apparent time studies

The main aim of the acoustic analyses and perception experiments was to investigate the extent to which speakers from various regional varieties of German neutralize or maintain Standard German phonological oppositions that are considered to be completely neutralized in their broad dialects. Another aim was to test whether the extent of neutralization was affected by age.  We predicted that young speakers of these regional varieties tend to a more standard-like pronunciation than old speakers based on the general assumption of dialect levelling in the direction of Standard German. Our results show that the extent to which phonological contrasts are neutralized depend on both speakers’ regional background and age.  The results point to two sound changes in progress in two varieties of German. The findings can be best modelled in an exemplar framework.