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The article discusses two explananda relating to tonogenesis in North Ger-manic: A) the origin of a tonal representation, B) the origin of a lexical distinction. Tradition has largely focused on B before A. I elucidate the assumptions of the B > A hypothesis and argue that it fails to properly address the phonologization of lexical tones. The alternative hypothesis, A > B, primarily looks to account for the phonologization of lexical tone (i.e., A). The mecha-nism assumed is the same as is active today: reduction of secondary stress in the word-internal clash context with attendant reanalysis of a postlexical tone as lexical. A prosodic postlexical rule —present in all dialects today— assigns the word tone of accent 2, which subsequently becomes lexicalized in a morpheme by morpheme manner. The developments of a postposed definite ar-ticle and epenthetic vowels, processes that are always mentioned as instrumental in demonstrat-ing the lexical distinction (B) do not directly bear on tonogenesis as such. The result is that A is the first explanandum.
