This study presents a micro-typological description of German dialects, focusing on the structure of 13,492 tokens of monosyllables, across 182 locations within Germany. Based on data from the Phonetischer Atlas der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, systematic geographical differences in both the segmental and prosodic organization of syllables are explored. The analysis reveals a North–South contrast in the organization of syllable structure. While the North tends toward more simple CVC syllables, the South tends toward the clustering of obstruents. An analysis of sonority dispersion reveals that in southern German, final demisyllables tend to follow more closely the sonority scale. Based on Markov chain models, the study reveals geographical differences in transition probabilities between the segments within monosyllables in German dialects.*

This paper focuses on Faroese preaspiration, a phenomenon observed in Western Nordic and in some Eastern Nordic dialects, where fortis stops are preceded by a glottal frication noise in specific contexts. After observing all environments where the mechanism is triggered, I provide phonological representations of the phenomena based on Government Phonology 2.0. In this model, the segmental structures contain melody but also space, which allows for intersegmental relations such as lengthening, even without adding new morphological material. As preaspiration depends on the vowel preceding the fortis stop—more precisely, on its vocalic quality and length—I propose analyzing preaspiration as a spreading of the fortis consonant toward the vowel on the left. In doing so, I provide a unified analysis of all environments in which preaspiration occurs.*