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Certain varieties in the Dutch and German language area distinguish two groups of words on the basis of different tonal melodies, a phenomenon called (Franconian) tonal accent. Despite extensive efforts, scholars are still far from reaching consensus on how this contrast may have developed. We show how both the accent genesis and distributional variation across dialects can be modeled by assuming that intrinsic durational differences between two sets of vowels formed the basis of the opposition. A key insight emerging from our scenario is that vowel-lengthening processes in open syllables must have been ongoing when apocope was completed, counter to the received view in Germanic historical phonology. Our analysis also addresses various broader issues concerning mechanisms of prosodic change, the interaction of sound changes, and the reliability of manuscript evidence. 

This paper examines the ternary vowel length contrast in East Frisian Low German, with a focus on the distinction between long and overlong vowels. While traditional accounts have analyzed overlong vowels as trimoraic or as carrying a tonal distinction, we argue that their behavior is better understood in terms of metrical structure rather than purely segmental or moraic properties. Drawing on phonetic evidence and prosodic patterns, we show that overlong vowels interact with stress assignment and foot structure, suggesting that their distinctive status arises from higher-level prosodic organization. Unlike long vowels, which occur predictably in stressed syllables of disyllabic feet, overlong vowels appear in monosyllabic feet, affecting the rhythm and duration of the prosodic unit. This metrical perspective provides a more unified explanation for the distribution and realization of overlong vowels and aligns with broader cross-linguistic patterns in vowel length contrasts. By reconsidering overlength as a prosodic rather than a strictly segmental phenomenon, this study offers new insights into the structural underpinnings of vowel length distinctions. 

A notoriously contested subarea of phonological typology is word-prosodic typology, which governs suprasegmental structure (such as tone, syllable structure and stress) at the word level. Within word-prosodic typology, it is widely recognized that some languages have so-called stress systems while others have lexical-tone systems. Other languages appear to have intermediate systems, with properties of both stress and lexically contrastive tone. Certain types of such intermediate systems are at the core of ongoing theoretical debates on the nature of word- prosodic systems, viz. language varieties with contrasts between two word tones that are restricted to the main-stressed syllables of a word, a phenomenon that is often descriptively referred to as tonal accent. In this paper, we aim to show that exploring tone-accent systems in detail has the potential to significantly contribute to word-prosodic typology, specifically concerning the foot as a tool for the analysis of syllable-internal prosodic contrasts. The phonology of tonal accent in Franconian (a variety of West Germanic spoken in parts of Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands) will be the main piece of evidence supporting our claims, with a focus on predictable interactions between segmental structure and accentuation. A central implication of our analysis is that tonal contrasts within syllables can sometimes derive from two types of feet being active in the same prosodic system. We support the Franconian evidence with analogous tone-segment interactions in Estonian and discuss the relevance of our claims in the broader context of word-prosodic typology. 

I argue that so-called ‘mora stress’ in Kohistani Shina (spoken in Northern Pakistan, realized as falling vs. rising accent) is best analyzed as a difference in the alignment of a LH* pitch accent to two types of feet (moraic vs. syllabic trochees). This paper offers a formalization of the mapping of (intonational) tones to foot structure and argues that independent evidence for a foot-based approach comes from a process of stress advancement, where stem stress predictably shifts to a following suffix when the final mora of the stem is accented; yet it remains on the stem when the stem accent is on a non-final mora. I end by briefly discussing typological and theoretical implications of our analysis, also drawing on a comparison with a similar advancement pattern in Lithuanian (known as de Saussure’s Law). 

For the North Germanic opposition between two tonal accents, it has been claimed that Accent 2 has a lexical tone, that Accent 1 has a lexical tone, that both accents are marked tonally in the lexicon, or that the accent opposition is based on two types of feet. Based on evidence from compounding, we argue that the opposition between Accent 1 and Accent 2 is equipollent, and that this is best expressed in a foot-based approach since each lexical item will necessarily receive a foot. Elaborating on previous metrical work on tonal accent, we assume that binary feet can be built on moras (= Accent 1) or syllables (= Accent 2) and show how this successfully captures compound accentuation in Central Swedish and Urban East Norwegian. Our foot-based analysis is in line with recent work on tonal accent that calls into question the claim that all tonal contrasts within syllables must be due to the presence of lexical tone. In addition, our analysis addresses issues surrounding the phonology of compounds in general, and prosodic effects of compounding in particular. 

We propose a first-time synchronic, foot-based analysis of predictable interactions between tonal accent and word-medial consonant voicing in Franconian dialects. As we show, this approach is comparable to the foot-based analysis of ternary quantity in Estonian and its interaction with consonant gradation (based on Prince 1980, Odden 1997). Furthermore, we argue that the generalizations on Franconian are hard to express with an approach based on lexical tones. Our presentation contributes to two ongoing debates in prosodic typology: 1. the interaction of voicing and metrical structure, and 2. the phonological representation of tonal accent.