摘要：In many cases, German words containing the vowel schwa can also be pronounced
without this vowel without marking a difference in meaning. If the form without schwa has
a syllabic sonorant, the two corresponding forms are said to be in a relation of alternation.
In derivational analyses, the main facts to be explained are the following: Under which
conditions can a schwa be deleted (or inserted, depending on the approach one may take)?
Which segment becomes the syllable peak instead of the schwa? While derivational
answers to the latter question attribute the assignment of the syllable peak status to some
specific alternation condition, a surface-based declarative analysis can rely on sonority for
this purpose: In every syllable, the most sonorous segment is the syllable peak. More
problematic is the question of the alleged schwa deletion. Since schwa is an epenthetic
vowel in German that does not contribute to the meaning of the word, it is to be expected
that every word containing a schwa located next to a sonorant may also be pronounced
without schwa. We show, however, that this expectation is not complied with: Neither
words like Blume 'flower' or Kirmes 'kermis' nor words like rechnen 'to draw' or Zyklen
'cycles' have a pronunciation without schwa. In order to explain this gap, we propose an
output-output-constraint that restricts the possible correspondences between a form that
contains a schwa and a form in which this schwa is missing.
