Article Title：Assibilation in modern German
Abstract：
This paper discusses alternations between [t] and [ts] in Modern German which require a process of assibilation whereby /t/ surfaces as [ts] before [j]. Although many German words have surface [tj] sequences which appear to be exceptional, it will be shown that the overwhelming number of these examples are systematic exceptions; by contrast, truly idiosyncratic exceptions to the process are rare. The process of assibilation will be argued to involve the change from [-strident] /t/ to [+strident] [ts]; hence, the German data support the claim in the literature on other languages that affricates are strident stops which have no [+continuant] component. It will be demonstrated that an Optimality-Theoretic analysis of the German data is superior to any possible rule-based one because only the former theory can account for all of the German facts. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: assibilation; affricates; optimality theory; orthography; German
DOI: 10.1016/S0024-3841(03)00112-8
Source：LINGUA
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