Abstract

The phonological inventory of German is subject to a fierce controversy. With respect to simple full vowels, the proposals vary between 8 and 22 units. The reason for these differences is that the determination of a phonological inventory is theory-dependent. In this paper, the compilation of the phonological inventory of German is tackled from the viewpoint of an autonomous declarative conception of phonology. Defining phonology as the study of the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic properties of potentially meaning-distinguishing elements, there is only one level of representation that is strictly phonological. On this level (which resembles surface structure in generative approaches) German proves to have 15 full vowels besides the two reduced vowels schwa and vocalic rhotic. While length turns out to be a phonetic factor only, word stress as well as the number of reduced syllables is being established as phonologically relevant. In the field of consonants, German has 6 stops (excluding the glottal stop), 11 fricatives, and 5 sonorants. Moreover, the syntagmatic character of diphthongs and affricates is discussed. The exposition is supplemented by considerations concerning the method of minimal pairs and the impact of complementary distribution on the status of elements as phonological. The results of the survey are almost identical with Vennemann (1982).