LL-L "Phonology" 2005.02.02 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Kenneth Rohde Christiansen <kenneth at gnu.org>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2005.02.02 (02) [E]

>From: R. F. Hahn sassisch at yahoo.com
>
>Oops! I take that back then.  Thanks, Kenneth.
>
>I've never come across it in Germany, though.
>
I am pretty sure that it is pronounced like [da:l] in Westphalia as
well. At least some places. In most of the Westphalian dialects (I am
including the dialects of the Netherlands below North Drenthe) have [a:]
or [æ:] (only in Stellingwerven so far as I know) where the a used to be
short.

This means for instance words like maken, water, daal(e), taal. Some of
these still have short vocals in other languages, like Danish tal
(number), German wasser (water)...

Cheers,
Kenneth

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From: R. F. Hahn sassisch at yahoo.com
Subject: Phonology

Thanks again, Kenneth.

It's interesting that the dialects you are talking about seem to be rather
conservative in that they seem to have preserved traces of an earlier short
/a/, even though some of them may phonologically lengthen it (supposedly on
account of a following liquid or nasal).  In Old Saxon the vowel is indeed
short (_dal_, not *_dâl_).

So the stages of development we have here seem to be the following:

(1) original /dal/ [dal]
(2) phonological lengthening to [da:l]
(3) phonemized lengthening to /daal/ [dQ:l] ~ [do:l]

Most dialects of Germany have reached stage 3. The vowel is a truly long one
and is treated as such.

However, I am not yet convinced regarding supposed shift from 1 to 2.

So far, the described situation strenghtens my long-held suspicion that the
[da:l] in the farwestern dialects is not truly phonemic but is a short /a/
lengthened by rule before liquids and nasals, as they are in other dialects.

In North Saxon dialects, the vowel in the word for 'number' is short, noth
long, but its environment demands lengthening by rule:

(01) /tal/ tal (Tall) [ta:l] 'number'
(02) /taal/ taal (Taal ~ Tool) [tQ:l] ~ [to:l] 'language'

(03) /mark/ mark (Mark) [ma:k] 'mark'
(04) /baard/ baard (Baart ~ Boort) [bQ:Vt] ~ [bo:Vt] 'beard'

(05) kam (Kamm) [ka:m] 'comb'
(06) kaam (kaam ~ koom ~ kahm ~ kohm) [kQ:m] ~ [ko:m] 'come!'

but:

(07) mat (Matt) [mat] 'mat'
(08) maat (Maat) [mQ:t] ~ [mo:t] 'mate'

(09) dag (Dag) [dax] 'day'
(10) daag' (Daag) [dQ:.G] ~ [do:.G] 'days'

However, I will consede that in the farwestern dialects there is indeed a
phonemic contrast between /aa/ and /åå/ if you can demostrate this by means
of minimal sets (such as -- fictiously -- *kat ~ *kaat ~ *kååt).  What needs
to be done is looking at all cases of [a:] to see if they can occur anywhere
besides in pre-liquid and pre-nasal ones.

Remember that lengthening of short vowels before liquids and nasals is a
widely applying rule in Low Saxon.  It applies in one form or another in
pretty much all dialects.  I believe that lengthening of short /a/ in such
environments has come to be written as <aa> in the dialects of the
Netherlands because this sound coincides with genuinely long /aa/ in
Standard Dutch ([a:]).

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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