Evidence for the Relevance of Secondary Stress in German: Prosodic Restrictions in Verbal Prefixation with ver-

Abstract

This contribution deals with secondary stress in Modern Standard German (MSG) and its relevance in affixation using the verbal prefix ver -. While the pattern ver +stressed syllable or ver+ schwa is allowed, ver +unstressed syllable is avoided in contemporary German (see also Kaltenbacher 1999). Diachronical data reveals that in earlier stages this prosodic restriction was not as strong as in MSG. The consistency with which verbs with the pattern ver +unstressed syllable are discarded in MSG (confirmed by look-ups in corpora and dictionaries) is a strong argument for the hypothesis that the relinquishment is due to a form of blocking related to the stress properties of the direct base: The affix ver - needs a direct base with some initial prominence, that is with primary or secondary stress. The only (ap-parent) exception to this stress condition is a base containing a schwa syllable which seems to be “invisible” for the stress-seeking prefix. Verbal derivation with the prefix ver - demonstrates that the stress properties of the base have to be taken into account also with regard to secondary stress. The data provided in this paper can count as further evidence for the existence and relevance of secondary stress in Modern Standard German and its interaction with morphology.