Intense Language Contact and Collapse of Lexical Strata. Verbs Ending with -urun in Issime

In Töitschu, a variety of Walser German spoken in the language island of Issime in Aosta Valley, a verbalizing suffix -urun is found with a significant number of verbs. In the paper, its enhanced productivity is argued to result from the merger of two different patterns. This is the consequence of the leveling of the native Germanic and of the non-native Romance lexical strata due to the combined effect of two distinct phonological changes forcing initial stress and vowel harmony. The collapse of the stratal distinction must be seen within the peculiar sociolinguistic environment resulting from intense contact due to high multilingualism in the context of adult L2-learning.