Historical */s/ in Preconsonantal Position in the German Minority Language of Sauris/Zahre in North-Eastern Italy

Abstract

In this paper aspects of the sibilant system in the variety spoken in the Germanic language island Sauris/Zahre in north-eastern Italy are presented. I investigate whether an intermediate, postalveolar “shibilant” (from Protogermanic */s/) in preconsonantal position is preserved from Middle High German as observed in other German minority languages in northern Italy. In Sauris/Zahre, in preconsonantal position a postalveolar realization is sometimes mentioned in literature, while in Modern Standard German and most related varieties in this position historical, postalveolar */s/ is retracted to palatoalveolar /ʃ/.

Keywords

• Language change. Language contact. S-retraction. Sibilants