Abstract. The B € AREN vowel in German is known to be subject to extensive variation, including, for some speakers, a merger with the BEEREN vowel. This article investigates the behaviour of the B € AREN and BEEREN vowels in Standard German in Switzerland and Austria. We observe an ongoing merger in Swiss Standard German but an ongoing reversal of such a merger in Austrian Standard German. Independent evidence shows that both varieties (Swiss and Austrian German) accommodate toward the prestige variety in northern Germany. This presents a kind of paradox: why should merger and reversal occur side by side? We attribute these opposite tendencies of merger and reversal to perceptual salience. In the prestige variety, much variation between these two vowels occurs, so Swiss and Austrian speakers are exposed to variable input for both vowels. This paper argues that the vowel that is different from the own variety is perceptually most salient and therefore accommodated to. As for the Swiss speakers, the merger of the B € AREN and the BEEREN vowel is unexpected, therefore salient, hence accommodated to. As for the Austrian speakers, the distinction between the B € AREN and the BEEREN vowel is unexpected, therefore salient, and accommodated to. This leads to the observed, opposite, patterns of change.

In language change, a reversal of a merger is generally considered to be impossible, since after two sounds have become fully merged, they are no longer distinct, so no phonetic or phonological cues exist that could reverse this process. This article investigates such an 'impossible' merger reversal: the split of the Bären vowel (orthographically represented by <ä> or <äh>) and the Beeren vowel (orthographically represented by , or in Austrian Standard German. We investigated a corpus of spoken data, measured the acoustic properties of the vowels, and determined the degree of the merger (by computing Pillai scores) for younger and older speakers. It turns out that the two sounds were formerly merged, but currently a split can be observed as an ongoing process. This paper argues that language contact with Standard German as it is spoken in Germany motivates the ongoing reversal. Since the Bären vowel is also subject to substantial variation in German Standard German, in order to get the split right, Austrian speakers are likely to invoke orthographical knowledge. We will consider the mental representations of this sound, including the graphemic representations from an Exemplar-theoretical viewpoint. Reversal of a MergerIn a merger, two different sounds converge on a single sound. It is usually assumed that a merger, if completed, cannot be reversed for the logical reason that after merging no phonetic or phonological cues exist that can serve as a means for reversal. Even in dialect contact, in which dialect M has the merger and dialect S has the split, M speakers will not learn the split, for they are not able to perceive the categorical distinction; if speakers try to reverse a merger, they will not get it

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Beeren and Bären are usually regarded to be merged. Some acoustic studies on ASG also suggest a merger between the vowels as in Miete and Mitte and even between the BEEREN/BÄREN merger and the MIETE vowel. This paper re-investigates these mergers from a sociolinguistic viewpoint and shows that older speakers tend to merge the vowels more than younger speakers. This points towards an ongoing dispersion (or 'unmerger') and we argue that this is a result of accommodation toward Standard German as it is pronounced in Germany.