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This book provides an overview of current issues in variation and
gradience in phonetics, phonology and sociolinguistics. It
contributes to the growing interest in gradience and variation in
theoretical phonology by combing research on the factors underlying
variability and systematic quantitative results with theoretical
phonological considerations. Variation is inherent to language, and
one of the aims of phonological theory is to describe and explain
the mechanisms underlying variation at every level of phonological
representation. Variation below the segment concerns articulatory,
acoustic and perceptual cues that contribute to the formation of
natural classes of sounds. At the segmental level there are
grammatical differences in the production and perception of
contextual variation of segments and in the syntagmatic constraints
on the combination of segments. At the suprasegmental level the
mapping of tones to grammatical functions and vice versa is
discussed. Further aspects addressed in this book are factors
outside of language: Variation that arises as a result of a
particular dialect or of belonging to a certain age group, or
variation that is the consequence of language change. Gradience and
variation have always been a central issue in phonetic and
sociolinguistic research. Gradience introduces variation in
phonology as well. If a phonetic entity can be pronounced in
different ways, depending on the environment, prosodic factors or
dialectal influences, this 'gradience' may introduce 'variation',
which we understand as a stable state of grammar.
The study employs an autosegmental-metrical model of intonation to
propose an intonational grammar of Swabian and Upper Saxon German,
respectively. The analysis is guided by the assumption that each
dialect exhibits a specific distinct intonation. The phonological
analysis is comparative in nature: the implementation of accents
are compared between the dialects in terms of tonal alignment and
excursion. In fact, the phonetic data present evidence for the
phonological analysis in that the individual tonal categories
differ significantly from each other. In addition, a functional
analysis of the intonation contours provides further evidence for
the phonological analysis. Based on the assumption that nuclear
contours convey intonational meaning, these meanings are analysed
and compared. A certain meaning can be attributed to intonation
contours that differ phonologically between the two dialects.
However, the general shape of contours and its association with
meaning has been proved to be identical in the two dialects and
compared to a similar analysis of intonational meaning of British
English. This comprehensive study of dialect intonation contributes
to improve our understanding of intonational phonology.
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