A major recent development in minimalist syntactic theory concerns phrase structure. Kayne (1994) claims that all phrases are binary, asymmetric, and left-headed. The implications of this restrictive theory for coordination as a syntactic phenomenon are quite broad. Most significantly, coordination can no longer be represented as the union of symmetrical conjuncts; rather, conjuncts are projections of the conjunction, a head, and stand in an asymmetric relation to each other.

Reduction of case morphology is not unusual in the history of languages, especially Germanic. What sets Pennsylvania German apart from an otherwise routine process is the fact that two distinct communities are reflecting two distinctly different developments in their case system—one group, the nonsectarians, is linguistically conservative; the other, the sectarians, is innovative. Therefore, it has been suggested that the internal argument for change is not applicable to Pennsylvania German; rather, the linguistic innovation of the sectarians is indicative of external pressure brought about by bilingualism. This paper argues that the reduction in case markings cannot neatly be assigned to one theory or another; instead, it is a combination of factors acting in tandem to bring about change. Data from Ohio, where case markings have been contracted more recently, provide the link, which points to “multiple causation” as the basis for morphological loss. Quantitative and qualitative evidence is presented from sectarian and nonsectarian groups in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

This paper aims to establish a framework for the investigation of Vienna Jewish speech (VJS)—the German spoken natively by Jews in Vienna during the 1920s and 1930s. The role of the ideological approach or perspective in the investigation of Jewish ethnolects of German (JG) is discussed at length. It is argued that the investigation of VJS—and of JG generally—must recognize the context of Yiddish linguistics in the broader sense. The paper also considers possible Jewish varieties of German that may have served as models for VJS. Consideration of VJS sheds light on the general linguistic discussion of borrowing vs. language shift.

This article takes as its point of departure two complicating factors in a well-known sound change in Dutch: when vowels lengthened in open syllables, (i) a long mid vowel emerged for each of the high vowels; and (ii) the high and mid vowels in the front series merged when lengthened. As with many other sound changes, the traditional formulation of open syllable lengthening states only the terminal points of a development; it says nothing about the intermediate stages. This article visualizes at least three intermediate steps—diphthongization, prominence shift, and monophthongization—which offer a rationale for the lowering of the high vowels and the merger in the front series.

The paper presents an analysis of noun inflection in Modern Standard German within a process framework. Familiar issues in the description of German inflectional morphology are discussed, such as analysis of weak nouns and of plural formation, and the establishment of inflectional classes, as well as broader theoretical issues such as postulation of identity relations (“zeros”). The elements of a process morphology are elaborated, including some that deviate from well-known models, such as recognition of a dynamic morphological component distinct from the static lexicon, expression of morphological semantics in the morphological component, and formalization of the notion of a paradigm. The paradigm is claimed to be an essential morphological structure, dynamic in nature, responsible for organization of the inflectional system and ensuring, in cooperation with operations applied to stems, correct sequencing and selection of these inflectional operations. It is also concluded that the inflectional class, derivative of the paradigm, may be a useful construct in some languages (including German), but is not a necessary one for all inflecting languages.

A survey of the Old High German texts provides a number of significant finds relating to the early use, frequency, and distribution of alliterating word-pairs. In the presentation and analysis of selected data, parameters for addressing a more complete rhetorical evaluation of the phraseologisms as they appear in the texts are outlined, with consideration of issues such as transmission, source influence, genre, and dialect. Contours of the early history of the alliterating word-pair in German are presented, while perspectives for further research are sketched. An appendix lists the entire corpus of Old High German alliterating word-pairs.

In Early New High German the word for ‘greyhound’ was wind, but in Modern German it is Windhund. This kind of change from an original simplex to a compound is called “pleonastic compounding,” a term used as little as the topic itself is discussed in the study of word formation. In Modern German some ninety (or more) native and borrowed words from the realms of animals, plants, minerals and others have developed in this way. This essay provides the first detailed account of the pleonastic compounds in Modern German. These words are first collected and presented in conceptual groups. Further goals are to describe and categorize them morphologically; to illustrate the semantic relationship between their respective constituents by application of the concept of hyponomy, which is expanded by means of zoological taxonomy in order to deal with selected animal names; and to describe the possible causes of their formation.

An examination of documents reflecting the change in late Middle High German and Early New High German of <s> to <sch> initially before a sonorant shows that it can be described as a “processual change,” one that affects one environment after another in a regular fashion. This change occurred first before a lateral; thereafter it was extended to nasals—alveolar then labial—and finally to the labial glide. After the late MHG merger of <s> with <z> following a vowel, <s> came to stand in complementary distribution with <sch>. The processual change took place by a process of “phonetic analogy,” whereby <s> before a lateral was gradually replaced by the alveopalatal on the basis of a relation of acoustic-auditory similarity with strident plus trill. The remainder of the procession proceeded in a similar manner.