Dutch in Modern Times - HiSoN

course Rutten_1Dutch in Modern Times
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Outline of the course
• 1st session • Language history ‘from below’ • History of Dutch • Project Letters as Loot • Case study 1
• 2nd session • Case studies 2 and 3 • Discussion
Language history ‘from below’
• What is ‘from above’?
• Standard language ideology and historical linguistics • Milroy (2001: 543-544): ‘It is undisputably true that much of descriptive and theoretical linguistics, together with much of historical linguistics, has depended on, or modeled its methodology on, the study of major languages (i.e. widely used ones) in standard language cultures – in which a language has been regarded as existing in a standard, classical, or canonical, form.’
• 1) Dialects, only with respect to RP (e.g. Wyld 1927) • 2) Language histories: legitimization of the standard (e.g. Thomason & Kaufman 1988)
• Ypeij (1812), Concise history of the Dutch language • Focus on literary language and the Bible • Variation before 16th/17th c. • Ch. 5 on 17th c.
• 9 pages on politics and religion • Rise of the Dutch protestant nation • ‘Golden Age’ • References to Dante, Ronsard, Opitz, Donne etc. • Two poets: P.C. Hooft (1581-1647) and Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679)
• “In the style of Hooft and V.d. Vondel, we already find the language in its present-day form, and in general as pure as it should be according to present-day experts”
[In den stijl van Hooft en v.d. Vondel treffen wij reeds de taal zoo gevormd aan, als zij thans is, en over het geheel genomen, zoo zuiver, als zij naar het oordeel van den tegenwoordigen kenner derzelve behoort te zijn (Ypeij, Beknopte geschiedenis der Nederlandsche tale, 1812: 474)]
• “In the course of the 17th century, agreement increased; especially Vondel’s language served as a model for writers. In the 18th century, practically the same language is written everywhere”
[In den loop der 17e eeuw kwam er steeds meer overeenkomst; vooral Vondels taal diende den schrijvers tot model. In de 18e eeuw wordt overal vrijwel dezelfde taal geschreven (Te Winkel, Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche taal, 1901: 27)]
• “around 1650 […] with regard to the codification of Dutch, a certain consolidation is reached. Selection on the macro level has taken place: Hollandic will become the standard language”
[rond 1650 […] met betrekking tot de codificatie van het Nederlands een zekere consolidatie is bereikt. De selectie op macroniveau heeft dan inmiddels ook plaatsgevonden: het Hollands wordt de standaardtaal (Van den Toorn et al., Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse taal, 1997: 364)]
• In sum: • Middle ages (Middle Dutch): regional variation (and counties and duchies, no nation-state)
• 16th/17th century: foundations of the standard language (and of the nation-state)
• 18th century: consolidation (codification) of the standard (and of the nation-state)
• The ‘funnel’ vision of the history of a language (prev. the tunnel vision), Watts 2012
• So what is ‘from above’? • Linguistic history reduced to the development of the standard language
• Educated language • Men + Latin school, university • Central region / capital • Published, edited language • …?
• Things that are usually not addressed • Regional writing practices, i.e. supralocalization in post-medieval periods
• Who actually wrote ‘the standard’ and how uniform was this standard? In other words, was there really a standard before 1800?
• Were writers aware of norms, if yes, did they write in accordance with these norms? Did they think they had to?
• Were there perhaps more norm systems or writing traditions?
History of Dutch
History of Dutch
B. Northwestern dialect group (Hollands) 3. South-Hollands
C. Northeastern dialect group (Low Saxon) D. Northern-Central dialect group
19. Utrechts-Alblasserwaards
F. Southeastern dialect group 24. Limburgs
History of Dutch
• Old Dutch • 600-1150
• Glosses and fragments
• Leidse Willeram (c. 1100) • Mittelfränkische Reimbibel (12th c.)
History of Dutch
• Middle Dutch • 1150-1550
History of Dutch
• Modern Dutch • 1550-present
• 16th and 17th c.: Early Modern Dutch
• Regional variation gives way to standard language • 16th c.: spelling guides • 1584 first full grammar (Twe-spraack vande Nederduitsche letterkunst ‘Dialogue of Dutch grammar’)
• 16th/17th c.: macro-selection (Hollands) • Golden Age: Hooft, Vondel etc • 18th c. ongoing micro-selection, codification, consolidation • 1804 official spelling, 1805 official grammar • 1851-1998 Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal (WNT) ‘Dictionary of the Dutch Language’
History of Dutch
• Grammars and orthographies
register / style etc
Letters as loot
Letters as loot
Seven Years’ War 1756-1763
Napoleonic period 1793-1813
Letters as loot
• Privateering • Legitimate activity
• National Archives
Letters as loot
Letters as loot
• Privateering • Legitimate activity
• National Archives
www.gahetna.nl/collectie/index/nt00424
Letters as loot
• C. 38,000 letters • Letters to ships, to the Caribbean, South Africa, Dutch East Indies
• 15,000 private letters • Men and women • Different social backgrounds (sailors as well as captains)
• Letters as Loot. Towards a non-standard view on the history of Dutch
• NWO grant 2008-2013 • Marijke van der Wal • www.brievenalsbuit.nl
Letters as loot
• HSL of Dutch
• Southern Netherlands, ‘long’ 19th c.
• University of Wisconsin – Madison • Howell, Boyce-Hendriks, Goss • Northern Netherlands, 16th/17th c.
Letters as loot
• Goal • “broad exploration and analysis of the linguistic data” • Various linguistic levels • Evaluate sociohistorical approach
• Results • 2 PhDs: Judith Nobels (2013) and Tanja Simons (2013) • HiSoN conference volume (2013) • 1 project monograph (2014) • 1 corpus (2013)
Letters as loot
of original manuscripts • Volunteers
• No spelling normalization (iaer ‘year’, bouen ‘above’) • No morphological normalization (ghe coft ‘bought’)
• Database with metadata
Letters as loot
• 17th c.: problem
Letters as loot
Letters as loot
• Content clues
• … ende al ist wat qualick geschreven ick en kon dat nijet
helpen want ick nogh ijn de koije lagh dat ick nogh niet eel
ghenesen en was ende was ghequst met twe motschet koghels
• ‘… and even if it is written somewhat badly, I couldn’t help it for I was still in the berth, because I hadn’t completely recovered yet, and I was hurt by two fusil bullets’
Letters as loot
Letters as loot
Letters as loot
soldiers, carpenters – and their wives
Letters as loot
Letters as loot
Letters as loot
2 Bourgeoisie (grote burgerij), e.g. wealthy merchants, shipowners, academics, commissioned officers
UC
UMC
4 Petty bourgeoisie (smalle burgerij), e.g. petty shopkeepers, small craftsmen, minor officials
LMC
6 Have-nots, e.g. tramps, beggars, disabled
Letters as loot
• Mainly letters sent to/from ports, i.e. to/from Holland and Zeeland
• E.g. Vlissingen, Middelburg, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Hoorn, Enkhuizen, Monnickendam, …
Letters as loot
Rank, 17th c
Letters as loot
Letters as loot
• On the other hand …
• Holland and Zeeland highly urbanized • 20% of the population lived in ports in Holland and Zeeland
• 175,000 in Amsterdam • 19 towns with > 10,000 inhabitants (cf. 8 in England, 23 in Germany)
• where 32% of the population lived • Immigrants, mostly from Germany and Scandinavia, went to Holland and Zeeland (VOC, WIC)
Case study 1
• Phonology / orthography • How close to the spoken language? Written dialect?
• Matter of debate in historical (socio)linguistics • Standard languages and language standards (Joseph 1987) • Consensus norms of regional speech communities (Milroy 1994)
• Supralocalization (Nevalainen & Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2006) • Schreiblandschaften (Von Polenz 2000)
Case study 1
• Morphologization, syllabification of spelling (Elmentaler 2003, Voeste 2007)
Case study 1
• Austin (1994)
• Clift letters, 18th c., Cornwall • “a language similar to speech or as near speech as we could now reasonably hope to find”?
• “this is not the case […] as soon as these people took up a pen they framed their minds to a formal mode of thinking […] their letters are neither markedly dialectal nor colloquial”
Case study 1
Case study 1
Case study 1: h
• Example: letter from Zeeland, 1664, by Gillis Block, to his wife Pieternelle Pieters
• Phoneme h
Case study 1: h
Case study 1: h
• Background • Loss of [h] in initial position in Old Dutch
• c. 1100: hic enda thu ‘I and you’ • 13th c., South/Southwest: us ‘house’, angen ‘hang’, ondert ‘hundred’
• Cf. 13th c., East Anglia: adde ‘had’, ave ‘have’, halle ‘all’, ham ‘am’
Case study 1: h
• Example: letter from Zeeland, 1664, by Gillis Block, to his wife Pieternelle Pieters
• Read the letter (and/or the glosses)
• Focus on h-phoneme
• Other remarks?
Case study 1: h
• oope, oeppen ‘hope’, ooren ‘hear’
• Prothesis • hens [eens] ‘once’, h alder ‘all+COMP, very’
• Substitution of <a> for <h> • aebbe ‘have’, aebt ‘has’, gaenade ‘mercy’
• Substitution of <h> for <a> • hpril ‘april’, hl ‘all’
Case study 1: h
• Interference of spoken language • Middle Dutch writing practices continued into Early Modern period
• But still: how close to the spoken language? What is the ‘degree of orality’?
• Corpus study • Stable dialect feature • Old and Middle Dutch examples before back vowels as well as front vowels
• Virtually absent from 17th and 18th c. published texts • Characters from the south stereotyped by h-dropping in contemporary literature
Case study 1: h
etymologically possible positions
• Letters to/from Zeeland
Case study 1: h
Case study 1: h
• 20 (69%) with at least one orthographical effect
• 14 (48%) with deletion
• 438 words with etymologically initial prevocalic [h] • 44 ø+V (= 10%) vs. 394 <h>+V (= 90%)
Case study 1: h
ø+V <h>+V
Examples N Examples N
9 eel 1 het (4), huis, heere(n) (4), gesonheijt, verhoope, verhooren, herte(n) (2),
hooren, hoope, hebben, heeft, hier (2), verhuist, hadde, heijt, hollant, hondert,
huisvrouwe
26
alf, aes
10 alhier, hier (2), hebben (4), hebbe (5), het (2), hoe (2), heeft (2), handt, heere,
here, hij (2), husvrouwe
Case study 1: h
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
<h>+V
ø+V
Case study 1: h
• 28 letters
• 13,000 words
Case study 1: h
<a> for <h> Total
N letters 10 (36%) 4 (14%) 3 (11%) 2 (7%) 11 (39%)
N tokens 32 (35%) 24 (26%) 27 (30%) 8 (9%) 91
(100%)
Deletion Prothesis Substitution
<h> for <a>
Case study 1: h
17th
18th
Case study 1: h
• Majority of letters orthographical effect (64%), esp. deletion quite prominent (fairly high degree of orality)
• In letters with deletion, 10% of h’s deleted (fairly low degree of orality)
• Largely due to a few writers, most other less than 10% (low degree of orality)
• In the 18th c., 39% of letters orthographical effect (even lower degree of orality)
Case study 1: sk
• Another example: sk • sk > sX / _x (and to s in medial and final position)
• Eng. (summer) school = Du. (zomer)school [sXo:l] • Eng. fish, Germ. Fisch = Du. vis [vIs]
• Middle Dutch: <sc> initial and medial, <sch> in
final position (from 13th c. onward <sch> also in
initial and medial position) • MD scip ‘ship’, tusscen, tusschen ‘between’, visch ‘fish’
Case study 1: sk
initial: schip ‘ship’, medial wensen ‘wish’ and final vlees ‘flesh’
Case study 1: sk
• Focus on North Holland and Amsterdam • Still sk in North Holland, in 19th c. also in
Amsterdam (Commandeur 1988)
• Four selections of letters • NH, 17th c.: 39 letters, 18,500 words
• AMS, 17th c.: 54 letters, 29,000 words
• NH, 18th c: 24 letters, 10,000 words
• AMS, 18th c.: 166 letters, 80,000 words
Case study 1: sk
• 17th c. North Holland • <sc> and <sk>
• Initial: scrieft ‘writes’, scade ‘damage’, scijp ‘ship’ • Medial: wenske ‘wish’, bisscop ‘bishop’ • Final: -
• Middle Dutch writing practices continued into
Early Modern period
is the ‘degree of orality’?
Case study 1: sk
• In these 6 letters: 15 <sc>/<sk> (= 32%) vs. 32
<sch> (= 68%)
3 scrieft, wenske 2 schepen, schiep, schiep, Geschreuen, veruersschen, schap,
mensche, schrieft, wiensche
Case study 1: sk
<sch>
Case study 1: sk
North Holland 17th c.
Case study 1: sk
• Conclusions sk • Spellings (<sc>/<sk>), unknown from the literature or considered medieval
• Minority of letters orthographical effect (2-15%) (low degree of orality)
• In letters with orthographical effect, 32-83% <sc>/<sk> (high degree of orality)
• However, largely due to a handful of writers, most other 10-20% (low degree of orality)
Case study 1: Conclusions
• Writers used the writing system to put their local dialect to paper,
• but more often they use a supralocal sign that represents a different pronunciation: supralocalization.
• Switch from spoken to written involves switch from local to supralocal • Function: intended supraregional variety (Mihm 1988, Vandenbussche 1999)
• Form: hybridity (Martineau 2013)
Case study 2
• Back to Gillis…
• Letter from Zeeland, 1664, by Gillis Block, to his wife Pieternelle Pieters
• Read the letter (and/or the glosses)
• Focus on phraseology
Case study 2: Formulaic language
• Functions of formulaic language • Corpus study • Discussion and conclusions
Case study 2: Formulaic language
• Formulaic language, phraseology, routine formulae, constructions, idioms, collations etc etc (e.g. Tannen 1987, Coulmas 1979, Cowie 1988, Wray 2002, Kuiper 2009, etc)
• In HSL: Nevalainen 2001, Tiisala 2004, Elspaß 2005, 2012, Dossena 2007, etc
• Formulaic language and epistolary formulae
• Wray (2002) and Elspaß (2005)
Case study 2: Functions
• Functions of epistolary formulae • Wray (2002): functions of formulaic language in general:
• “the reduction of the speaker’s processing effort, the manipulation of the hearer (including the hearer’s perception of the speaker’s identity), and the marking
of discourse structure ... processing, interaction and discourse marking”
• Four functions of formulaic language in Dutch private letters of the 17th and 18th c.
• Not four categories
• Intersubjective function • Focus on the relationship between the writer and the addressee (e.g. politeness, cf. Nevalainen & Raumolin Brunberg 1995, Bax 2010)
• Three domains • Greeting • Contact • Health
• sijt van harten gegroet ‘be from heart greeted’ • van harten gegroet en duisent mael gekust ‘from heart greeted
and thousand times kissed’
• de groetenes van ul hueijsurou en cenders en ael vrenden ‘the greeting from your wife and children and all friends’
• doedt de groetenisse van min moeder aenmin vader en aen uwer liede en van ons allen en aen alle goe vrienden ‘do the greeting of my mother to my father and to you people and from us all and to all good friends
• wenssen Ul hondert duissent goede nacht ‘wish you hundred thousand good night’
• mijn suster marrijtien en haer man corneelis wenschen v l veel goede nacht ‘my sister Marrijtien and her husband Corneelis wish you many good night’
• dat wij malkanderen sullen sien en spreken ‘that we each other will see and speak’
• dat wi met gesontheit bi malcan der salle kommen ‘that we with health to each other will come’
• dat wij malcanderen haest sullen zien met gesontheit ‘that we each other soon will see with health’
• dat wij met gesontheijt malkanderen weer mogen sijen als de goede godt belijeft en ons salijg ijs ‘that we with health each other again may see if the good God+DAT pleases and us blessed is’ [‘if the good God will like this and will be merciful to us’]
• als dat jck noch klock en Ghesondt ben tot noch toe ‘that I still strong and healthy am until now’
• als dat ick en ul vaeder en min vaeder en moeder noch klock en gesont sien ‘that I and your father and my father and mother are still in good health’
• vorders soo sijn al onse vriende noch cloeck ende gesont ‘further so are all our friends still strong and healthy’
• dese diend om UEd te Laten Weten dat ik Nog fris en gesond zyn ‘this serves to you to let know that I still fresh and healthy am’ • gesund und munter ‘sound and well’ • helsen og sundhed ‘health and healthiness’ • in good health (Elspaß 2012)
Sequence of (subordinate) health formulae in introductory passages
1 als dat ick en ul vaeder en min vaeder en moeder noch klock en gesont sein
‘that I and your father and my father and mother are still in good health’ 43
Subordinate health formulae
2 godt sij lof van syn groote genade ‘Praise the Lord for his mercy’ 20
3 gelijck ik hoop van vl mijn lief te verstaen ‘as I hope to hear from you my
love’ 29
4 het welcke mijn van harten seer lief om te hooren is ‘which I [would] very
much love to hear’ 11
5 waer het Anders het waer ons van herten leet ‘if it were different, we would
be very sorry’ 22
6 dat wedt godt almachtich die en kender van alle harten is ‘The almighty
God, who knows all the hearts, knows this’ 13
Total subordinate formulae 95
• Christian / ritual: • Foreground the relationship between the writer and the divine world, or between the writer, the addressee and the divine world
• Usually place the writer and/or the addressee under divine protection, thereby construing the writer’s identity as religious
• Commendation formula
• zijt de heere bevoolen ‘be the Lord commended’ • godt in genade bevole ‘God in grace commended’ • dat ul beveele in de ghenade des alder hooghtsen ‘that you commend in the grace of-the very highest’
• Text-constitutive
• Text type • Foreground the text in itself • Draw attenttion to the fact that the text is a letter
• E.g. address formulae, date formulae, salutation and opening formulae, closing formulae, signatures
• Text structure • Mark transition to new part of the discourse
• E.g. I let you know that, furthermore
te behandijgen aen roelandt to deliver to Roelandt ijosten ostvorndijck IJosten Ostvorndijck vaert op het schijp rotter sails on the ship Rotter- dam dat voert cappetein dam, that commands Captain lendert arijensen haechs Lendert Arijensen Haechs- wandt uijt rotterdammet wandt from Rotterdam, with
vrijendt die godt bewaert friend whom God protects straetwaert ijn to the Mediterrean Sea
looft goodt u booven al praise God above all dit geschreuen uit rotterdam this written in Rotterdam met alle vrient schaep schep schaep with all friendship den viftienden the fifteenth september september
Case study 2: Functions Honourable very beloved dear mother and brothers I let you know that I am still healthy I hope that you and my two brothers are like that as well if it were different I would be very sorry to hear that. Furtherwhat happens here is not much there are not many ships and there are no loads and the chestnuts are not very good further I received your letter and understood from it that Jacop is still healthy but our Cornelis he has the fever furthermy beloved mymother do not worry to much I am not in distress here I hope that my father will get a load with highland wine further so I let you know that the chestnuts are not very good my father would have sent some home but they are not good hope that my father will bring some himself further so say to uncle Claes’s Maertjen and the other girls and the servants and my brother Jacop many good nights and let him be obedient to you in all things which is just and fair. You also write that our Cornelis is very busy with the pullets You also write that they all lay [eggs] and I have understood that Cornelis [?] is at home and say to Garbrant Siercksz that his brother Harck Siercksz has arrived here safely and Taems Cornelisz Buysman has already got to Bayonne Furthermy beloved mother I do not know anything other to write be heartily greeted from me and commended to God almighty in his mercy. Your willing son Claes Jansz Kuijper
Common structure of a letter Formulaicity Type of formula
- Address
- Date
- Salutation/opening
Largely
Formulaic
- Text-type
- Text-type
- Text-type
1) Introduction - I hereby let you know that
- that your father, my father and mother and I are still in
good health
- Text-structural
2) Middle part - context-dependent information
- may contain e.g. For the rest, I’m letting you know that
or as far as I’m concerned
Largely non-
formulaic - Text-structural
- I send you my kindest regards
- Be commended in mercy into (the hands of) God
- that we may see each other again with love
- Nothing more for now but
Largely
formulaic
Case study 2: Questions
• What about the processing function?
• Who actually used these formulae? • 1) Experienced writers • 2) Less experienced writers
Case study 2: Questions
• Formulaic language as “Formulierungshilfe” (Elspaß 2005: 180-181)
• Writing experience (a.o. Vandenbussche 1999, Elspaß 2005)
• More writing experience > less formulae
• What is writing experience? • Extent to which people participated in the written culture.
• History of reading and writing
Case study 2: Reading and writing
• Background: post-medieval increase in literacy, textualization of society
• Reading • Increase in the production of reading materials
• Vernacular more important than Latin
• Socially stratified
• Example: 39-47% of the population of The Hague
(18th c.) had no books
Case study 2: Reading and writing
• Writing • Order of teaching
• Active and passive literacy
prospects
Men Women
Case study 2: Corpus study
• Writing experience in our corpus • Diachronic differences • Diastratic differences (rank and gender)
• Formulae • Een vriendelijke groetenisse zij geschreven aan ‘A friendly greeting be written to’ (N17 = 41, N18 = 0)
• Ik laat u weten dat ‘I let you know that’ (N17 = 154, N18 = 41)
• Kloek en gezond ‘strong and healthy’ (N17 = 52) • Fris en gezond ‘fresh and healthy’ (N18 = 36)
17th c. N letters N words
LC 10 5,500
LMC 40 24,000
UMC 138 64,000
UC 22 15,500
Total 210 109,000
M 156 94,000
F 40 34,000
Total 196 128,000
LC 20 7,000
LMC 34 13,000
UMC 73 38,000
UC 69 70,000
Total 196 128,000
M 155 75,000
F 55 34,000
Total 210 109,000
Frequency of the two formulae (17th c.) per social class
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Formula: een vriendelijke groetenisse ... (17th c.)
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Proportion of letters with een vriendelijke groetenisse... (17th c.) per social class and per gender
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
100
Formula: ik laat u weten als dat (17th c.)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Frequency of ik laat u weten als dat (17th & 18th c.) per social class, per gender, total
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
• Diachronic differences • More in the 17th than in the 18th c.
• Diastratic differences • More among women than among men • More in the L(M)C than in the U(M)C
• So less-experienced writers use more formulae. • Austin (2004) on the decline of epistolary formulae in
English letters from the 18th and 19th c.: “[t]he two main
groups that continue to use the formulas, even into the
nineteenth century, are seamen, mostly of the lower
ranks, and women”.
• Distribution of formulae mirrors distribution of writing experience
• Explanation: “formulating help” • Formulaic language enables less-experienced writers to
write a full letter fairly easily. Instead of lengthy pondering, the writer can resort to fixed formulae that provide conventionalized and generally accepted ways of verbalizing information and experiences.
• With some modifications, Wray’s (2002) analysis of formulaic language in spoken discourse also applies to epistolary formulae in 17th and 18th
Dutch. • Four functions: intersubjective, Christian/ritual, text- constitutive, formulating help
• Formulating help: patterns of variation mirror distribution of writing experience in the language community
• Writing experience as explanation • After all, “[a]s a written genre, letter writing has to be learned” (Nevalainen 2004: 182)
Case study 3: Final schwa
• Apocope of final schwa • Important change in Middle / Modern Dutch • Relatively low awareness
• Feature
• Corpus
• Results
• Conclusions
Word class Schwa (MiD) Apocope (MoD) Gloss
Nouns hase haas hare
Adj bose boos angry
Num achte acht eight
Adv lange lang long
Art ene een a
Pron haere haar her
Prep ane aan on
Conj ende en and
1 sing pres ind (ic) leve (ik) leef (I) live
1 sing past ind (ic) brachte (ik) bracht (I) brought
Infinitives (te) doene (te) doen (to) do
• Phonological change
• Phon: maintained after [d], e.g. schade ‘damage’, hulde ‘tribute’
• Morph: maintained in past indic of regular weak verbs: zij werkte ‘she worked’
• Lex: ten name van ‘in the name of’, in koelen bloede ‘in cold blood’, zegge en schrijve ‘lit. [I] say and [I] write, precisely, no more than’
• Oldest forms c. 1300 in Holland, Utrecht,
Gelderland, Limburg, i.e. northwest, middle and
southeast • Prosodic origin: first in polysyllabic nouns (riddere > ridder ‘knight’; Marynissen 2009)
• 15th c: 1 sing pres indic (ic groet ‘I greet’), but earlier
in case of inversion (groet ic)
• 17th c • State Bible: apocope mainly with inversion • Vondel and De Ruyter: variation,
no correlation with inversion
Case study 3: Corpus
1660s-1670s Regional 454 201,000
1660s-1670s Autograph 260 118,000
Case study 3: Results
• Corpus examples with <e>
• 17th c • (1) Ick en twiffele niet of dat sijn maer al valsche tongen ‘I do not doubt
that those are all scandalmongers’ • (2) vorders stiere ick vl twee kinneties harinc ‘further, I send you two
small barrels of herring’
• 18th c • (3) neeme ik de vryheid uwelEdele deeze te schrijven ‘I take the liberty of
writing this to your honour’ • (4) Jk wensche gaarn te weeten, of uwEd: mijn haan aan Zussie styntji
bezorgt heeft ‘I would like to know if you have delivered my cock to little sister Styntji’
• Corpus examples with <ø>
• 17th c • (5) ick en twyffel niet of wij sulle alle jaeren wel bryeve van mekander
hebbe ‘I do not doubt that we will have letters from each other each year’
• (6) ick stuer u met desen schepen 2 brieven ‘I send you two letters with these ships’
• 18th c • (7) In ’t Nieuws Aangaende de Famielje neem ik veel belang ‘I am very
interested in news about the family’ • (8) ik wens u veel geluk En zeegen in het nuiwe jaar ‘I wish you much
happiness and blessings in the new year’
• More corpus examples… • <en>
• (9) want ick nu voortaan beginnen nae ul ende t’Patria te verlangen ‘for now I begin to long for you and the fatherland from now on’
• (10) denkt dan Eens myn geliefde man in hoe een groot verlangen dat ik zietten ‘please think, then, my dear husband, how strong the desire is that I a have’
• <t> • (11) ijck een geloft oock nijet dat ghij een brijef uan mijn uijt leest ‘I also
do not believe that you read through a letter from me’
• <‘> • (12) zend’ ik u bij dese, 2 Boecken ‘I herewith send you two books’
• From the literature:
• Diachrony (Results 1) • Phonology: left and right context (Results 1) • Region (Results 1)
• Social variation: age, gender, rank (Results 2)
Case study 3: Results 1
1516
853
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
17th c
18th c
• Hiatus breakers and linking elements • (13) Henk haalde de vlo [υ] uit het eten ‘Henk removed the flea from
the food’ • (14) Henk haalde [n] een vlo uit het eten ‘Henk removed a flea from the
food’ • (15) law [r] and order • (16) rod-ø aardbeien for rode aardbeien ‘red strawberries’
• Right context • Apocope of final schwa triggered by vocalic right context? (cf. ik groete
vs groet ik) • <en>-ending favored by vocalic right context?
Case study 3: Results 1 Ending 1 sing pres ind
(17th century)
North Holland Amsterdam South Holland Zeeland
Right context by region
Case study 3: Results 1 Ending 1 sing pres ind
(18th century)
North Holland Amsterdam South Holland Zeeland
Right context by region
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
• Left context
• -d is conservative (cf. schade ‘damage’, hulde ‘tribute’, weelde ‘luxury’)
• -t is progressive: ic laet ‘I let’ already in 13th c
• d-stems e.g. bidden ‘pray’, houden ‘hold’, worden ‘become’, zenden ‘send’
• t-stems e.g. laten ‘let’, zitten ‘sit’, groeten ‘greet’, wachten ‘wait’
40
63
55
30
• Conclusions (1) • Clear diachronic differences: apocope of final schwa is spreading
• Diffusion is regionally conditioned (from north to south) • Regional differences largely levelled out in 18th c • Phonological conditioning
• Right context: vowels trigger apocope, at least to some extent, and only in the 17th c
• <n> in <en> is not a hiatus breaker • Left context: d-stems are very conservative, t-stems very progressive
• Social variation • Age • Gender • Rank
• Per region • North Holland + Amsterdam • South Holland • Zeeland
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Zero endings 1 sing pres ind (17th and 18th century)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Zero endings in 1 sing pres ind (17th and 18th century)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
• Summing up: • In 17th c NH/AMS, UC-M were most conservative
• Awareness, old writing practice
• Extended to UC-F and UMC-M in 17th c SH • But in the 18th c, women were more conservative than men in SH
• And the UMC more than the UC • And in Zeeland it’s similar in the 18th c
• What’s going on in the UC and UMC in Zeeland and in South Holland in the 18th c?
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
• In the 17th c, UC men in NH/AMS are conservative
• The change spreads to the south, to SH and Zeeland,
• where in the 18th c, UC women and the UMC are
conservative (but not UC men).
• Two options, and two writing traditions: with or
without schwa
convention, while apocope was probable common in
spoken language
women and the UMC in 18th c SH and Zeeland
• But UC men have adopted a new convention:
apocope
• Changing sociolinguistic situation
• Norm development • 16th-early 17th c: grammarians and schoolbooks give both options
• Kók (1649), Leupenius (1653): apocope prescribed • But Moonen (1706): schwa prescribed • 18th c: schwa gradually gives way to apocope, and is often not even mentioned anymore in the second half of the century
• UC men were the first to adopt this new norm (and perhaps the only ones who cared about it)
• Internal (phonological) and external factors
• AMS/NH: overall 17th and 18th c similar • Social variation in 17th c, less so in 18th c • UC men most conservative in 17th c
• SH: overall 17th and 18th c similar • Social variation in 17th c, less so in 18th c • UC and UMC men most conservative in 17th c
• Zeeland: big change • Hardly any social variation
• Change sociolinguistic situation: UC men very
progressive in the 18th c
Summing up…
Summing up…
• Project Letters as loot • Autograph status • Literacy
• Degree of orality (case study 1) • Awareness ++
• Writing experience (case study 2)
• Internal and external factors (case study 3) • Awareness -/+
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