Over the past few decades, the book series Linguistische Arbeiten [Linguistic Studies], comprising over 500 volumes, has made a significant contribution to the development of linguistic theory both in Germany and internationally. The series will continue to deliver new impulses for research and maintain the central insight of linguistics that progress can only be made in acquiring new knowledge about human languages both synchronically and diachronically by closely combining empirical and theoretical analyses. To this end, we invite submission of high-quality linguistic studies from all the central areas of general linguistics and the linguistics of individual languages which address topical questions, discuss new data and advance the development of linguistic theory.

The study employs an autosegmental-metrical model of intonation to propose an intonational grammar of Swabian and Upper Saxon German, respectively. The analysis is guided by the assumption that each dialect exhibits a specific distinct intonation. The phonological analysis is comparative in nature: the implementation of accents are compared between the dialects in terms of tonal alignment and excursion. In fact, the phonetic data present evidence for the phonological analysis in that the individual tonal categories differ significantly from each other. In addition, a functional analysis of the intonation contours provides further evidence for the phonological analysis. Based on the assumption that nuclear contours convey intonational meaning, these meanings are analysed and compared. A certain meaning can be attributed to intonation contours that differ phonologically between the two dialects. However, the general shape of contours and its association with meaning has been proved to be identical in the two dialects and compared to a similar analysis of intonational meaning of British English. This comprehensive study of dialect intonation contributes to improve our understanding of intonational phonology.