Historische Phonologie, Rechtschreibreform und der Wandel o > ó im Niedersorbischen
Historical Phonology, Spelling Reform and the Change of o > ó in Lower Sorbian

Summary/Abstract: The Lower Sorbian spelling reform of 1995 reintroduced the letter ó that had been eliminated from the alphabet in the reform of 1952. However, this reintroduction, intended primarily as a pedagogical device to serve as a cover symbol for the phonetic realization of the phoneme /ó/, differed in some important respects from the practice of writing ó in Ernst Mucke’s thesaurus of 1911–1928 and of his grammar of 1891 as well as from the wealth of data presented in the Sorbian Linguistic Atlas (1965–96) . The present study assembles dialect data in one particular environment of ó, viz. , PK_ł (where PK = peripheral consonant), that show the phonemic relevance of ó in that en–vironment in addition to other environments arising due to the loss of ł and to analogy. These data as well as Mu-cke’s retention of ó in the environment PK_w < ł serve as evidence to show that ó was not immediately delabialized here after the change of ł > w but served as a trigger to restructure the Lower Sorbian vowel system.

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