Reihenschritte im rezenten Lautwandel?

: A popular thesis in both traditional and also structural dialectology is that vowels of the same class change in the same manner – this is called “Reihen-schrittgesetz” ( = parallel movement law) (cf. Pfalz 1918). The aim of this paper is to re-examine this “law” by investigating recent reflexes of MHG ê – œ – ô in traditional rural South and South-Central Bavarian dialects. Based on a comprehensive dialectal survey, real-and apparent-time comparisons are applied. The re-sults of both qualitative and quantitative analysis (principal component analysis, cluster analysis) reveal that there is no clear evidence for the validity of the “Rei-henschrittgesetz”. Instead variety contact (horizontal and vertical convergence) provides a sufficient explanation for most of the occurring changes. As an internal factor lexical diffusion appears to be important.