A major recent development in minimalist syntactic theory concerns phrase structure. Kayne (1994) claims that all phrases are binary, asymmetric, and left-headed. The implications of this restrictive theory for coordination as a syntactic phenomenon are quite broad. Most significantly, coordination can no longer be represented as the union of symmetrical conjuncts; rather, conjuncts are projections of the conjunction, a head, and stand in an asymmetric relation to each other.

This paper aims to establish a framework for the investigation of Vienna Jewish speech (VJS)—the German spoken natively by Jews in Vienna during the 1920s and 1930s. The role of the ideological approach or perspective in the investigation of Jewish ethnolects of German (JG) is discussed at length. It is argued that the investigation of VJS—and of JG generally—must recognize the context of Yiddish linguistics in the broader sense. The paper also considers possible Jewish varieties of German that may have served as models for VJS. Consideration of VJS sheds light on the general linguistic discussion of borrowing vs. language shift.

The paper presents an analysis of noun inflection in Modern Standard German within a process framework. Familiar issues in the description of German inflectional morphology are discussed, such as analysis of weak nouns and of plural formation, and the establishment of inflectional classes, as well as broader theoretical issues such as postulation of identity relations (“zeros”). The elements of a process morphology are elaborated, including some that deviate from well-known models, such as recognition of a dynamic morphological component distinct from the static lexicon, expression of morphological semantics in the morphological component, and formalization of the notion of a paradigm. The paradigm is claimed to be an essential morphological structure, dynamic in nature, responsible for organization of the inflectional system and ensuring, in cooperation with operations applied to stems, correct sequencing and selection of these inflectional operations. It is also concluded that the inflectional class, derivative of the paradigm, may be a useful construct in some languages (including German), but is not a necessary one for all inflecting languages.

An examination of documents reflecting the change in late Middle High German and Early New High German of <s> to <sch> initially before a sonorant shows that it can be described as a “processual change,” one that affects one environment after another in a regular fashion. This change occurred first before a lateral; thereafter it was extended to nasals—alveolar then labial—and finally to the labial glide. After the late MHG merger of <s> with <z> following a vowel, <s> came to stand in complementary distribution with <sch>. The processual change took place by a process of “phonetic analogy,” whereby <s> before a lateral was gradually replaced by the alveopalatal on the basis of a relation of acoustic-auditory similarity with strident plus trill. The remainder of the procession proceeded in a similar manner.