Re: CHAT: geminate in _Messer_ (was: Announcement: New auxlang "Choton")

Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>:

> On Sun, 10 Oct 2004 15:27:10 +0200, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
>
> >Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>:
> >
> >> On Sun, 10 Oct 2004 11:02:53 +0200, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
> wrote:
> >
> >> >Actually, I too find the new rules easier. On top of which they allow
> >> >for more consistent treatment of vocalic length and don't involve the
> >> >most annoying concept of orthographic syllables.
> >> >
> >> >(Unless you're telling us you've got a geminate in _Messer_ ...)
> >>
> >> That wouldn't be much of a surprise: This feature is found in Swiss
> >> standard German, and Pascal's German seems to share other features with
> >> Swiss standard German, as e.g. the distinction between short |ä| and |e|.
> >>
> >> However, Swiss standard German geminates the |ss|, that is, has a long
> >> /s:/ as well in |Messer| as in |heissen| (or |heißen|). So this doesn't
> >> make any  distinction.
> >
> >Neat. Are there any medial short [s], making for a a three-way contrast
> >/s:/~/s/~/z/ in the Swiss standard?
>
> We have |reissen| ['raIs:(@)n] vs. |reisen| ['raIs(@)n]. The [s: / s]
> contrast corresponds to the [s / z] contrast of other varieties of standard
> German. It's often spelled [s: / z_0] or even [s / z_0] in order to make
> this correspondance more obvious.
Would I be correct to infer that this is a retention of an older state of
affairs? The orthography rather suggests this than the "standard standard"
/s/~/z/ contrast, after all.

> >Pascal would have to for his comments
> >re: |ss|~|ß| representing (in the old orthography) whether it spans two
> >syllables or not to make sense (unless I'm missing something).
>
> ??
He was saying that, in the old rules, you could predict |ss| vs |ß| based on
whether it spanned a syllable break. I couldn't see how that might make sense
unless some of his /s/'s were geminate and some not - /haj.sEn/ vs /mEs.sEr/ or
similar. Then he mention this derivational principle, which, well, doesn't make
sense either, but at least effectively removes syllabification from the
consideration.

                                                             Andreas