Taal en Tongval. Jaargang 46

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Abstracts

Jo Verhoeven: Phonetic characteristics of Limburg velar [R]

In this paper, a geographically determined variant of Dutch uvular [R] is investigated with respect to its acoustic characteristics. For this purpose, one speaker of Standard Dutch from the region of Limburg (northeastern province of Belgium) was asked to produce short utterances containing words with /r/ in various environments. In the first instance, the various instances of [R] were perceptually assessed in terms of their phonetic nature. Subsequently, measurements were made of several acoustic dimensions such as duration, repetition frequency and spectral composition. From the investigation, it appears that [R] is most often realised as a voiced trilled stop or a voiceless trilled fricative. It was also found that the specification for voice of [R] is to a very large extent determined by the right-hand phonetic context in which the segment is embedded. The left-hand context exerts a much smaller influence.

Hans Van de Velde: 60 years of (r)evolution in Standard Dutch

This is a study on variation and change in the pronunciation of postvocalic / r/ in two varieties of Standard Dutch between 1935 and 1993. It is a real time study on the basis of recordings of radio-broadcasts of this period. In Southern Standard Dutch, which is spoken in the northern part of Belgium (Flanders), there is no shift. Two variants, [r] and [R], occur, with a clear dominance of the first one throughout the investigated period. In Northern Standard Dutch (spoken in the Netherlands), however, there is much more diversity and also a clear shift. After vowels (though, of course, not necessarily in other positions) [r] and [R] have disappeared almost completely over the past sixty years and have been replaced by [r], [ɽ] and different types of vocalic realisations.

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Doreen Rogier: The geographic spread of a prestige language feature: velar [R] in the Ghent region

The Ghent urban dialect was one of the first dialects of Dutch speaking Belgium to adopt velar [R]. It is certain that this usage was borrowed from the prestige language French, less than a century ago. Velar [R] has now, practically, ousted apical [r] in the city dialect. [r] remained, however, in common use in the wider Ghent region until recently, but is, at this moment, rapidly being replaced by the prestige variant in the (Standard) speech of young people. This phenomenon is influenced by a number of factors (sex, age, social background, mobility, etc.), which are studied starting from samples of language use from over 600 young children and adolescents.

Pieter van Reenen: Three times /r/ in the Dutch dialects

This study is the first one completely based on the recently collected dialect material of the ‘Goeman-Taeldeman project’. It covers the Dutch and Frisian speaking area of the Netherlands (leaving the most southern part of the language area - the ‘Flemish’ north of Belgium - aside). The author concentrates on the distribution of three types of realisations of /r/ in a number of environments: coronal [r], velar / uvular [R], and a large number of (semi)-vocalic realisations. As to the origin of [R] different hypotheses seem to be called for: [R] may have originated as a very distinguished loan from French in the towns of (western) Holland (especially in The Hague), but lacks this high status in the eastern provinces where it is at home as well. In the latter regions it may be imported from Germany.

Georges De Schutter & Johan Taeldeman: /r/ in stressed syllables before consonant in the southern Dutch dialects

In large parts of the southern Dutch dialect area (covering the southern part of the Netherlands, and the northern half of Belgium) /r/ tends to be lost between stressed vowel and coronal consonant. This tendency is stronger and more widespread before spirants {s, z} than before both stops {t, d} and sonorants {l, n}, and it is more consistent if the coronal consonant is tautomorphemic than if it is not. There are, clearly, two geographic entities: a large western and central one, where /r/-deletion is closely related to a similar rule in adjacent Romance speaking (Walloon) territory, and a small southeastern one, which seems to be an extension of a large German (Ripuarian) dialect area. It is very well possible that the rule of /r/-deletion

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has different origins in these two areas: assimilation of (apical) [r] to the following consonant in the former, vocalisation and merging with the preceding vowel in the latter.

Durk H. Veenstra: Remarkable forms of verbs with vocal stem in Frisian

This article deals with variants of the verbs hawwe ‘to have’, dwaan ‘to do’, slaan ‘to hit’ and sjen ‘to see’, which have, in a part of the Frisian-speaking region, a stem-final r in the first person singular (e.g. ik har ‘I have’) and in the plural forms of the present tense (e.g. wy har(re) ‘we have’). On the basis of a description of the relevant aspects, an explanation of the origin of these variants is presented, which is compared whith explanations of the origin of comparable variants in the dialects in the eastern part of the Netherlands.

It is shown that the r-variants have to be located in the north-eastern part of the Frisian-speaking area, where the variant of the verb hawwe has, at least for a part of the Frisian-speakers, completely lost its original stem-final v, as is demonstrated by the fact that the gerund nowadays occurs as te ha in stead of te hawwen. The present tense forms of the verbs dwaan, slaan and sjen also have variants without the original stem-final consonant /γ/ (e.g. ik/wy do ([do]) ‘I/we do’ in stead of ik doch/wy dogge). Therefore, and due to the fact that the r-variants occur before word-initial vowels, it can be concluded that the r is inserted between adjacent vowels. Insertion of the r - that should be regarded as inversion of the r-deletion-rule - was made possible by the fact that the vowels /a/ and /o/ block the insertion of a homorganic glide. The r-variants of the verbs involved can nowadays be considered as lexicalized.