Dutch

Full text

Dutch
CARLOS GUSSENHOVEN
Vakgroep Engels-Amerikaans, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen,
Erasmusplein 1, 6525 HT Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Apart from the Republic of Surinam and the Leeward islands of the Dutch Antilles, Aruba,
Bonaire and Curaçao, where Dutch is an official language, Dutch is spoken in the
Netherlands and the northwestern half of Belgium by about 20 million speakers. Variation
in the pronunciation of educated European Dutch is substantial. For instance, the Belgian
varieties (also collectively known as Flemish) tend to have monophthongal realizations of
[e…, P…, o…] as opposed to realizations as closing diphthongs in the Netherlands. More
generally, the southern varieties tend to have a full set of voiced fricatives /v, z, V/ by the
side of /f, s, x/ – which system of voiced fricatives is reduced to just /v, z / or just /z / as one
gets closer to the prestigious western part of the Netherlands (‘Randstad’). (There is great
variability in the voicing of fricatives. Low-prestige urban varieties in the west may also
lack /z /.) Roughly south of a line Rotterdam-Nijmegen, which is marked by the rivers
Rhine, Meuse and Waal, /x, V/ are velar, while to the north the corresponding voiceless
fricative is post-velar or uvular. The phoneme /r/ tends to be alveolar in Belgium, in
Amsterdam and in the north-east of the Netherlands, but uvular elsewhere. The variety
illustrated represents Western, educated, middle-generation speech, and a careful colloquial
style. More information is given by Collins and Mees (1982), Mees and Collins (1983), and
Booij (1995).
Consonants
Bilabial Labio-
dental
Alveolar Post-
alveolar
Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Plosive p b t d (c) k (/)
Nasal m n ( ≠) N
Fricative f v s z (S) ( Z) X H
Tap |
Approximant √ j
Lateral
Approximant l
ppen ‘pen’
bben ‘(I) am’
t tak ‘bough’
d dak ‘roof’
([c]ketjap ‘soy sauce’)
k kat ‘cat’
X gat ‘hole’

Illustrations of the IPA 75
mmens ‘human being’
ffiets ‘bicycle’
voven ‘oven’
√wang ‘cheek’
llente ‘springtime’
n nek ‘neck’
([≠]oranje ‘orange’ adj)
s sok ‘sock’
z zeep ‘soap’
j jas ‘coat’
| rat ‘rat’
N eng ‘narrow’
([S] chef ‘section head’)
([Z] jury ‘jury’)
([/] beamen ‘confirm’)
H hoed ‘hat’
/p, t, k/ are voiceless unaspirated, /b, d/ are fully voiced. Alveolars (except /|/) are laminal
and /s, z/ may have only mid-to-low pitched friction. [c, ≠, S] are the variants of /t,n,s/ that
occur before /j/. In fact, all occurrences of these sounds can be analyzed as sequences of
alveolar-plus-/j /; by analogy, [Z] could be seen as /zj/ and is therefore parenthesized in the
chart above. [c, ≠, S, Z] are prepalatal, the tip of the tongue being held in the lower jaw.
/v/ tends to be only weakly voiced. /√/ is [√] in the onset, and [B§] in the coda. /|/ is [|] in
the onset, and [®] in the coda; in careful speech, a trill may occur word-initially. [/] precedes
vowel-initial syllables within words after /a…, ´/; because of its predictable distribution it is
also shown in parentheses.
Voiced obstruents and /H/ do not occur in the coda; /v/ is restricted to positions between
voiced segments within the word. Marginal [g] (not listed) occurs in a small number of
loans.
Sentence phonology is characterized by a number of consonantal adjustments.
Sequences of identical consonants are reduced to single consonants by a process of
degemination. Progressive devoicing will affect fricatives after obstruents, while obstruents
may be voiced before /b, d/. Moreover, post-sonorant word-final fricatives, particularly /s/,
may be voiced before vowels.
Vowels
Dutch has a set of lax vowels, a set of tense vowels, and a reduced vowel. The first column
gives the lax vowels and the reduced vowel /´/, the second column the tense vowels.
Vowels in the third column are marginal in the language, and only appear in recent loans.
The nasalized vowels [E)…, A)…, O)…] (not listed) also have this status. There are also three wide
diphthongs.
Ibit ‘bit’
Yhut ‘cabin’
Ebed ‘bed’
´’t ‘the’
ibiet ‘beetroot’
yfuut ‘grebe’
e… beet ‘bite’
P… neus ‘nose’
i… analyse ‘analysis’
y… centrifuge ‘spindryer’
E… serre ‘conservatory’
{… oeuvre ‘works’

76 Handbook of the IPA
Abad ‘bath’
Obot ‘bone’
a… zaad ‘seed’
o… boot ‘boat’
uhoed ‘hat’
O… zone ‘zone’
u… cruise ‘cruise’
Ei ei ‘egg’
{y ui ‘onion’
øu zout ‘salt’
/i, y, u/ are long before /|/ in the same stress foot. /e…, P…, o…/ are narrow closing diphthongs
([ei, Py, ou]), except before /|/ in the same word, when they are pronounced [e´, P´, o´].
•
•i“…‘ u“…‘
´
a…
E“…‘ O“…‘
Y
A
y“…‘
I
{…
••
•
•
•
•
•
••
{
y
e…
Ei
o…
P…
øu
•
•
•
•
••
Stress and accentuation
Main stress falls on the antepenult, the penult, or the final syllable of the word if the penult
is open, and on the penult or the final syllable if the penult is closed. The long marginal
vowels only occur in stressed syllables. In unstressed syllables, the otherwise long [e…, P…,
o…, a…] are short. Minimal pairs are rare, examples being canon ["ka…nOn] ‘canon’, kanon
[ka"nOn] ‘cannon’; Servisch ["sE|vis] ‘Serbian’, servies [sE|"vis] ‘dinner service’.
Largely depending on focus, intonational pitch accents will occur on the syllable with
main stress of some words, marked with [ " ] in the transcription. The realization of these
pitch accents will extend as far as the next pitch accent or the single bar ˘, which marks off a
minor intonational phrase. Utterance-final boundary tones may be added before the double
bar ˘˘.
Transcription of recorded passage
d´ "no…|d´√Int En d´ "zOn ˘ HAd´ ´n dIs"kYsi o…v´| d´ "f|a…X ˘ "√i fAn HYn "t√e…´
d´ "stE|´kst´ √As ˘ tun ´| "j{yst imAnt fo…|"bEi k√Am ˘ di ´n "dIk´ "√A|m´ "jAs
a…nHAt ˘˘ z´ sp|a…k´ "Af ˘ dAt √i d´ fo…|bEiXAN´| d´|tu zøu "k|EiX´ z´≠ "jAs {y t´
t|Ek´ ˘ d´ "stE|´kst´ zøu zEin ˘˘ d´ "no…|d´√Int b´XOn {yt "Al´ mAX t´ "bla…z´ ˘˘
ma…| u "HA|d´| i "blis ˘ dEs t´ "dIXt´| d´ fo…|bEiXAN´| z´≠ jAz Om zIX "He…n t|Ok
˘˘ t´n"slOt´ XAf t´ no…|d´√Int ´t ma…| "Op ˘˘ f´|"fOlX´nz b´XOn d´ "zOn ˘ "k|AXt´X
t´ "st|a…l´ ˘ En O"mId´l´k da…"|Op ˘ t|Ok t´ fo…|bEiXAN´| z´≠ "jAz {yt ˘˘ d´
"no…|d´√Int kOn tun slEXs b´"/a…m´ ˘ dAt´ "zOn d´ "stE|´kst´ √As.

Illustrations of the IPA 77
Orthographic version
De noordenwind en de zon hadden een discussie over de vraag wie van hun tweeën de
sterkste was, toen er juist iemand voorbij kwam die een dikke, warme jas aanhad. Ze
spraken af dat wie de voorbijganger ertoe zou krijgen zijn jas uit te trekken de sterkste zou
zijn. De noordenwind begon uit alle macht te blazen, maar hoe harder hij blies, des te
dichter de voorbijganger zijn jas om zich heen trok. Tenslotte gaf de noordenwind het maar
op. Vervolgens begon de zon krachtig te stralen, en onmiddellijk daarop trok de voor-
bijganger zijn jas uit. De noordenwind kon toen slechts beamen dat de zon de sterkste was.
References
BOOIJ, E. E. (1995). The Phonology of Dutch. Oxford University Press.
COLLINS, B. AND MEES, I. (1982). A phonetic description of the consonant system of
Standard Dutch. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 12, 2–12.
MEES, I. AND COLLINS, B. (1983). A phonetic description of the vowel system of
Standard Dutch. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 13, 64–75.