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1 Introduction

The sounds of the major modern West Germanic languages have been the subject of extensive and insightful contrastive studies, see, for instance, Moulton (1962a) for English and German, Collins and Mees (52003) for English and Dutch, and Morcin­iec (1994) for German and Dutch. In accord with objectives of applied linguistics their authors (rightly) concentrate on the sounds that are missing from the “source language” and particularly on the phonetic differences holding between near­iden­tical sounds of the languages to be compared, since these are the most persistent sources of difficulty and error in foreign language learning. In the process, theauthors, however, often reveal a tendency to overlook or discount interesting more abstract structural properties shared by the languages or absent from them. Also they tend to overemphasize the unity of each particular language and presuppose uniqueness and constancy of its pronunciation, when they select just one standard varietyasafixedandputativelyunalterablenormforthecomparison.Thisproce­dure is of course especially problematic in the case of English, which has (at least) two national standards of pronunciation that are strikingly different in sound.

Pronunciation norms constitute a bulwark against variation and change, yet they are not immune to these universal linguistic phenomena. It can be observed that at least since the middle of the twentieth century there have occurred structural changes in the standard vowel systems of American English (AmE) and German, as well as remarkable changes in the realization of certain phonemes of Dutch and British English (BrE). Such changes are sometimes noted in the contrastive studies, but generally not taken into account in the overall treatment. After a time of increasing de­standardization these developments appear to have given rise to alternativepronunciationstandardsat thebeginningofthetwenty-firstcentury.This is primarily evident in competing vowel systems. The current situation of the threelanguagesinrespectoftheirpronunciationnormsisstillmarkedbyfluctua­tion and a general instability in the pronunciation of vowels and diphthongs.

This comparative study attempts to steer a middle course between the often excessively surface­oriented phonological analyses of traditional contrastive accounts and the overly idealized discussions and generalizations of universal grammar. For each of the three languages, including the American and British Englishstandards,twovowelsystemsaredescribedandexplained:aconven­tional and slightly dated system, certain features of which younger speakers are inclined to consider somewhat stilted or outmoded, and a more modern

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and progressive system that incorporates substantive changes and seems to be favored by younger speakers. In the process, I adopt an analytic approach that is basically oriented toward the phonological surface and strives to be uni­form and economical. I rigorously and almost exclusively use the symbols and descriptive devices provided by the International Phonetic Association, avoid­ing applications of some symbols to cases where they are nowadays phoneti­cally unrealistic and solely sanctioned by tradition. Furthermore, the approach is typological in the sense that universal formal criteria holding for vowel sys­tems and vowel length in the languages of the world will become relevant and be applied in the analysis. In this way I am going to stress the structural and typological commonality and diversity of the three languages, rather than their realizational phonetic particulars and differences. Toward the end, in Chapter 13, the standard vowel systems of the three West Germanic languages will be compared from a typological perspective with vowel systems of many other languages and positioned in a tentative typology of vowel length.

It has become almost imperative in linguistics that the authors of publica­tionsonphonologyprofessaffiliationandallegiancetooneofthemanymodernschools or at least declare and clarify their theoretical stance at the outset. And I shall follow suit.

I advocate a traditional phonemic theory which basically comprises two descriptivelevels:anunderlyinglevelofphonemicrepresentationandasur­face level of phonetic representation. I am favoring a multilinear hierarchic approach when I recognize phonemes, i.e. the principal segmental units of pho­nological description, and distinctive features, their more abstract component elements, as two types of phonological primes and when I assume the existence of syllable structure associated with a descriptive tier which includes consecu­tive temporal slots (X­positions) and explains the timing of phonological seg­ments. Yet in the present study componential analysis will play only a minor role, just as syllable structure will merely be explicated on an ad hoc basis. Further, I make use of synchronic process rules in my description, although it is my opinion that a relational analysis of linguistic structures, as proposed by L. Hjelmslev and S.M. Lamb, and a static formulation of structural relations are more appropriate to synchronic studies. The simple reason for utilizing pro­cess rules is that process formulations are more straightforward and intuitively more accessible than the description of network relations. It is also my convic­tion that theoretical and methodological purism is unhelpful in phonological analysis, if important and interesting generalizations will be poorly expressed or even missed in the description. Therefore I feel free to use also non­phono­logical information in the description, and in the basically synchronic approach I often invoke phonological information that is clearly of a diachronic nature.

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Furthermore, I take a prototype view of what the primes are in phonological description and permit a synchronic derivation of “quasi­primes” (secondary phonemes) from “typical primes” (primary phonemes).

Eclectic, relatively unconstrained by theoretical premises, and noncommit­ted to any particular school of modern phonology, the present phonemicist approach is predominantly oriented toward the phonological surface. By and large, the account of the vowel systems and the proposed analyses are imple­mented and couched in a manner that from a vantage point of contemporary phonology appears to be outdated and technically unsophisticated. Ultimately, however, this may perhaps prove to be its merit, because any type of “[p]hone­micist theory … lends itself particularly well to the establishment and com­parison of sound systems in different languages and … accents of a language” (Giegerich1992:296).

In phonetic studies of vowel systems the segments are often placed in trap­ezoids with dots marking the typical area of articulation for the respective sounds. I do not use this method, for such a procedure presupposes hard and fastinstrumentalmeasurementsofformantconfigurationsandtheseareoftenunavailable,difficulttocomeby,orsometimessimplyunreliable.Foreaseofexposition I arrange the vowels and diphthongs without dots in an abstract quadrangular format that schematically represents the oral cavity of a person facing left. In conformity with the principles of the IPA, I differentiate maxi­mally between seven degrees of phonetic vowel height along with three degrees of backness/advancement, and I make a distinction between peripheral and nonperipheral vowels. Moreover, in typological investigations of vowel sys­tems the sounds are often placed in triangles, provided the systems include one a­sound or two a­sounds of equal phonetic quality. Such an exposition may bejustifiedfromastrictlyphonologicalpointofview,butappearstometobeoverly stylized.

I endeavor to base my representations on articulatory and acoustic analyses madebytheauthoritiesinthefield,yetduetothefrequentlackofreliablemea- surements and the relatively abstract representational format adopted for the pres­ ent study, my plottings of the typical vowel implementations will remain more or less impressionistic and should be viewed as being only approximate. For the sake of descriptive economy my vowel diagrams are intended to provide an integrated phonetic and phonological account of the sounds. In cases where the phonetic classificationofavowelsoundisnotunequivocallyinaccordwiththepositionalvalue which it has in an abstract descriptive schema based solely on systematic phonological contrasts, I tend to favor its phonological classification, assign­ing a phonetically less realistic position to a sound when there is a discrepancy between a sound’s physical and functional characteristics. Long and short vowels

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and true, i.e. phonological, diphthongs are integrated into one and the same dia­gram that represents an overall system.1

1 The present study has grown out of the article Müller/Charlton (2006) and substantially enlarges it by dealing also with German and Dutch vowel systems.