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John Nerbonne und Christine Siedle: Dialektklassifikation auf der Grundlage aggregierter Ausspracheunterschiede

In traditional dialect geography, dialect divisions are based on individual linguistic features. However, the concept of the “dialect area” lacks a satisfactory theoretical basis when the geographical distribution of linguistic features is inconsistent or contradictory. We are confronted here with the problem of non-converging isoglosses. The present article suggests a method by which this problem can be solved. This operates on the basis of a quantitive analysis of similarities in pronunciation and allows the systematic processing of large amounts of data. The method works on a numerical (and not a categorical) level and is therefore additive, so that one can ascertain differences not just in terms of the word or the phoneme, but also in terms of the cumulative level of the “variety”, for example, the dialect of a village. Using this method, we can define dialect areas in which the boundaries are more gradual than those delineated in the traditional dialect surveys. The data from 186 German varieties form the basic material for the portrayal of the procedure used here.