With the application of the Contrastive Hierarchy Theory, the contrastive features of preliterary Scandinavian vowels are here inferred from the interaction between targets and triggers for metaphonic fronting, rounding and breaking. One Proto-Scandinavian feature hierarchy is reconstructed for prominent syllables and another for non-prominent ones. The former hierarchy sustained contrasts that differed from the latter, including contrast for rounding and a preserved distinction between Pre-Germanic */i/ and */e/. A prominence system is reconstructed that predicts both the outcome of syncope and the distribution of the two vowel systems between syllables. The analysis neatly accounts for many notorious cruxes of umlaut and breaking that correlate with the prosodic position of the trigger, including the frequent absence of i-umlaut in light syllables.

The data puzzle of Proto-Nordic rounding and front umlauts is addressed by positing an undominated markedness constraint that bans [±round] moraic stem-final segments. A related constraint restricts the assignment of [±round] in affixes. These constraints impact on how stem-final triggers spread features to target vowels, which proves a good predictor of the so far poorly understood distribution of umlaut in the lexicon. Since these constraints refer both to syllabification and to specification of contrastive features, the paper applies a tentative reconciliation of constraint-based Stratal Phonology with Contrastive Hier­archy Theory, which postulates universal organisation of emergent features in binary feature hier­archies. Stem-level segments are accordingly assumed to be stripped of redundant overspecification by stem-level constraints, while umlaut was enacted in word-level phonology.

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