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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2026
In The pronunciation of English in the Atlantic States (Ann Arbor, 1961), Hans Kurath and his collaborator, Raven I. McDavid Jr., have given us the first detailed study in structural dialectology that has ever been made of a large geographical area. In the present article, offered in Kurath's honor, I shall try to make a similar contribution in miniature: a structural analysis of the vowel of a single pair of words, involving part of the short-vowel system of part of German-speaking Switzerland. Following Kurath's example, I shall examine the vowel phonically, phonemically, and historically.
1 I am deeply grateful to Professor Hotzenköcherle for allowing me to use the Atlas materials with complete freedom, and to him and his coworkers, R. Trüb and R. Schläpfer, for their many kindnesses. My stay in Zurich during 1958–59 was made possible through a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies, for which also I express my sincere gratitude.
2 My materials lack data on hast, hat for SH 7, TG 15, and UW 6 and 8. On each of my maps, point SG 9 is represented by two symbols: one to the north for Rorschach-Stadt, one to the south for Rorschach-Berg. I have done this because these two areas of Rorschach show different vowel systems.
3 The only exceptions (not noted on the map) are two points along the Rhine : at SG 15 the diphthong ea was recorded for both hast and hat; at SG 16, hat was recorded with ea but hast with over-open e (with the double hook parenthesized). For an explanation of these forms, see footnote 5.
4 I have presented data for part of this area in an article, The Short Vowel Systems of Northern Switzerland: A Study in Structural Dialectology, Word 16.155–82 (1960). That study presents in considerable detail a number of points which are sketched only briefly in the present one.
5 Though I have included SG 12, 13, 15, 16 within this SH-TG area, they really show a mixture of two structures: the SH-TG structure /e/–/ɛ/ (/fettər wɛttər wɛšpi/) and a Rhine valley structure /e/-/ɛə/-/ɛ/ (/fettar wɛəttar wɛšpi/). Cf. Jakob Berger, Die Laute der Mundarten des St. Galler Rheintals (Frauenfeld, 1913; BSG 3, i.e. Beiträge zur Schweizerdeutschen Grammatik)) and Leo Jutz, Die Mundart von Südvorarlberg und Liechtenstein (Heidelberg, 1925; Germanische Bibliothek 1.1.15). The Atlas materials show both /ɛ/ and /ɛə/ in words of the Wetter group. This explains the ea recorded for hast, hat at SG 15, and for hat at SG 16. At GR 17 I have indicated only /ɛ/ as the vowel of hast, hat; Map 1 shows that /e/ was also recorded.
6 Albert Weber, Die Mundart des Zürcher Oberland (Frauenfeld, 1923; BSG 15); Walter Clauss, Die Mundart von Uri (Frauenfeld, 1929; BSG 17); Catharina Streiff, Die Laute der Glarner Mundarten (Frauenfeld, 1915; BSG 8); J. Winteler, Die Kerenzer Mundart des Kantons Glarus (Leipzig & Heidelberg, 1876). The Kerenzen area is represented on the maps by GL 2
7 For the most recent treatment of this verb line, see Arnold Bangerter, Die Grenze der verbalen Pluralendungen im Schweizerdeutschen (Frauenfeld, 1951; Beiträge zur Schweizerdeutschen Mundartforschung 4).
8 A full treatment of the dialect geography of hast, hat must of course include all of German-speaking Switzerland. It is possible that a second *hëst, *hët area appears in the extreme southwest. The data which I have collected from the Atlas materials show both [ɛ]- and [æ]-forms in southwestern Bern; I have omitted this area from my discussion because I have not been able to work out its front-vowel system. (My data seem to show a few points in which MHG e, ë, ä all give modern [æ].) For Freiburg, BSG 16.§234.1 gives for hast, hat both [æ] and [ɛ], and calls [ɛ] younger. The Atlas materials show [æ] in southern Freiburg; cf. also BSG 10.§28.1 Anni. 1 and §244. The Lower Wallis also seems to have [æ]; cf. BSG 2.§237.1 and BSG 6.§188. My materials on hast, hat do not include the Wallis; full data will presumably be published in the Sprachatlas der deutschen Schweiz.