LL-L "Phonology" 2005.02.03 (02) [E/LS]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 03.FEB.2005 (02) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Holger Weigelt <platt at holger-weigelt.de>
Subject: "Phonology"

Hello Ron !

> 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).

For Eastern Friesland (not farwestern) such contrast can be shown by
examples like:
kât - kóóet  [ka:.t] / [kQ:.t] (cat / hut, cottage) or lât / lóót  (lath /
late), nat (wet) / nóót (seam)

> (07) mat (Matt) [mat] 'mat'
> (08) maat (Maat) [mQ:t] ~ [mo:t] 'mate'
EFLS: mât (mat) G. Matte  / móót  (measure)
(08) maat (Maat) [mQ:t] ~ [mo:t] 'mate' isn't known here.

> (04) /baard/ baard (Baart ~ Boort) [bQ:Vt] ~ [bo:Vt] 'beard'
EFLS: boert (bO:Vt)
> (05) kam (Kamm) [ka:m] 'comb'
> (06) kaam (kaam ~ koom ~ kahm ~ kohm) [kQ:m] ~ [ko:m] 'come!'
EFLS: kâm (comb) kōmen (to come), kum ! (come!)

> 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'

These in EFLS are both tóól [tQ:l] only in case of rarely used  getal
(number = quantity) we have a short ~a~ but like most ge~ forms this is to
be regarded as a Dutch loan.

> 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.

In EFLS it is often a problem to distinguish between real length and the
virtual length of vowels followed by ~r. There is no general lengthening
before nasals but the normal change between short and long vowels due to
grammatical rules. example: dat pad is lang - dat is 'n lâng pad (the way is
long / it's a long way).

I didn't write this to discuss again the differences between Low Saxon in
Eastern Friesland and elsewhere but to show that there is room for more
variation and we sometimes might have to consider further developement or
influences to explain language phenomenons.

Greetings
Holger

----------

From: Holger Weigelt <platt at holger-weigelt.de>
Subject: "Phonology"

> From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at worldonline.nl>
> Subject: phonology
> What Kenneth says about the distinction between [a:] and [å:]/[Q:] is
> absolutely true for all Low Saxon varieties in the Netherland,

I'm a bit confused about the use of [å:]/[Q:]. Do these symbols mean
different sounds or just a different way of writing the same phonemical
entity ?

> For instance many LS dialects in the Netherlands have ee [e:] from old
long
> e and/or from old ei, but also ae/èè [E:] from old short e.
>
> Lèven [lE:b=m] 'to live/life' vs 'teken' [te:k=N] 'sign (token)' etc.
> èten/aeten [E:t=n] 'to eat' vs 'benen' [be:n:] 'leg (bone)' etc.
> In many Northern German LS varieties these >distinctions are absent or at
>least different.
>
> From: R. F. Hahn sassisch at yahoo.com
> I don't feel that it's absent or different.  There may be individual words
> in which it is phonemically different, but otherwise the differences are
> merely phonetic, not phonemic (which is to be expected in
cross-dialectical
> contexts).
>
> General North Saxon of Germany:
> leven (Leven ~ Läven ~ Leben ~ Läben) ["lE:v=m] ~["lE:b=m] 'life'
> leven (leven ~ läven ~ leben ~ läben) ["lE:v=m] ~["lE:b=m] 'to live'
> leyven (leven ~ leben) ["le.Iv=m] ~["le.Ib=m] ~ ["la.Iv=m] ~["la.Ib=m] 'to
> love'
> leyven (leven ~ leben ~ leiven ~ leiben) ["le.Iv=m] ~ ["le.Ib=m] ~
>    ["la.Iv=m] ~ ["la.Ib=m] 'dear/beloved (ones)'
> teken (T(h)eken ~ T(h)äken) ["tE:k=N] 'counters'
>
> teyken (Teken ~ Teiken) ["te.Ik=N] ~ ["ta.Ik=N] 'sign (token)' etc.
> eten (eten ~ äten) [E:t=n] 'to eat'
> beynen (Been(en) ~ Bein(en)) [be.In:] ~ [ba.In:] 'legs'
>
> As you can see, the only difference is that your [e:] is a diphthong
([e.I]
> ~ [E.I]) in our dialects.  The distinctions are basically the same.
>
Hello Ingmar, hello Ron !

I just did another posting about the [a: / Q:] difference in Eastern
Friesland Low Saxon but when I read now about the e-question I want to add
the following remark:
In EFLS we have to distinguish the following e-phonemes:
e = Schwa [@]
e / äe [E] / [E: or sometimes E.@]
ē / ê [e:] / [e:.  or more correct e:e]
Many speakers however use to pronounce the long e like [e:I] but this isn't
a real diphthong and mustn't be marked orthographically.
Real diphthongs are
äi / äie  [æI] / [æ.æI]
ei / äj / äej  [EI] / [E:I] / [E:EI]

some examples:
wel [vEl]  who
wäel [vE:l] spring, fountain
rēken [re:ken] bill, lēwend [le:vend] life, ēten [e:tn] to eat
wêk [ve:ek] week
wäil [væIl] wheel, bäin [bæIn] leg, täiken [tæIkn] sign, symbol
säiep [zæ.æIp] soap
twäj [tvE:I] two
tweihunnert [tvEIhUn at t] two hundred
bäej [bE:EI] berry

Kind regards
Holger

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From: Jan Strunk <strunkjan at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2005.02.02 (02) [E]

Hello,

> From: Kenneth Rohde Christiansen <kenneth at gnu.org>
> Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2005.02.02 (01) [D/E/LS]
>
> Reinhard wrote
>
>>never pronounced *[da:l] but either [d@:l] or
>
> It is pronounced like [da:l] some places in Drenthe and as [dæ:l] in
> Stellingwerven
>
> Kenneth
>
> ----------
>
> From: R. F. Hahn sassisch at yahoo.com
> Subject: Phonology
>
> Oops! I take that back then.  Thanks, Kenneth.
>
> I've never come across it in Germany, though.
I don't think that's entirely correct. Old long a: is preserved as such in
most
Westphalian dialects and there is a clear distinction between long a: and
long @: which
are different phonemes, so if I am not mistaken, you say "daal gaon" [da:l
g@:n] and
not "daol gaon" [d@:l g@:n]. In fact some books I read (sorry, can't give
you any exact citation right now)
state that the Westphalian dialects (I don't know whether these includes the
dialects of Twente or Drenthe or not)
are the only Low Saxon dialects to have preserved this old phonemic
distinction between a: and @:.

Some more examples of preserved long a:

fa:ken (instead of f@:ken) "often"
ma:ken (instead of m@:ken) "to make, do"
etc.

Other words that are have the same vowel as the ones above in Northern
dialects of Low Saxon
have a more back @:

laoten (instead of la:ten) "to let"
straote (insteead of stra:te) "street"
paol (instead of pa:l) "pole"
etc.

Gued gaon!

Jan Strunk
strunk at linguistics.rub.de

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From: Kenneth Rohde Christiansen <kenneth at gnu.org>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2005.02.02 (03) [E]

Well, I would say that they are indeed long. There is also a phonemic
difference between the words 'tal' and 'taal'. And in words like water
you don't have a nasal nor a liquid.

It is the exactly same with e. In Gronings (and in Standard Dutch) we
have ee [e:] en [E:] (and in Dutch [EI] as well, like in weet).  The
[E:] occours where the E used to be short! Thus in words like 'vergeten'
(compare with German, vergissen), 'eten' (essen), 'beter' (besser, Eng.
better). In some dialects like for instance Twents this is so apparent
that they actually write it as 'ae' or 'ea'. But pronouncing these words
with [e:] in Dutch would sound wrong in my ears, or maybe Belgian :)

Cheers,
Kenneth

Myn vründ Ron het schreven:

>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

----------

From: Kenneth Rohde Christiansen <kenneth at gnu.org>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2005.02.02 (07) [E]

Ingmar schreev:

>For instance many LS dialects in the Netherlands have ee [e:] from old long
>e and/or from old ei, but also ae/èè [E:] from old short e.
>
>Lèven [lE:b=m] 'to live/life' vs 'teken' [te:k=N] 'sign (token)' etc.
>
>èten/aeten [E:t=n] 'to eat' vs 'benen' [be:n:] 'leg (bone)' etc.
>
In Groningen we do have a diphtong here ([E.I], [A.I], or [O.I])

beyn, beteyken, deyp, weyt...

èten, lèven, vergèten, bèter...

Groutnis,
Kenneth

--
Kenneth Rohde Christiansen
http://kenneth.phileon.nl

----------

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

Thanks for all the input, folks.

Myn makker Kenneth (baven):

> There is no general lengthening
> before nasals but the normal change between short and long vowels due to
> grammatical rules. example: dat pad is lang - dat is 'n lâng pad (the way
is
> long / it's a long way).

I suspect this to be related to superlength (which has been underreported in
cases of nasals).  Namely, the vowel receives extra length due to elesion of
_-e_ (_lange_ -> _lâng _).

As for monophthong [e:] in Drenthe where there is diphthong [e.I], [E.I] or
[a.I] in other dialects, this seems to be coinciding, roughly, with written
Middle Saxon ("Middle Low German") <ê>.  My hunch is that this represented a
monophthong (in all or most dialects) and that this has been preserved in
the dialects for which our Ingmar stands up so valiantly, and that other
dialects have meanwhile diphthongized this (to increase contrast with /ee/
[E:], which in many North Saxon dialects then shifted to [e:].  So,
hypothetically, developmental stages:

(1) E: vs e: (Middle Saxon)
(2) E: vs e.I (separation increase I: diphthongization)
(3) e: vs e.I (monophthong tensing)
(4) e: vs a.I (separation increase II: diphthong lowering)

Diphthongization of long monophthongs is very common in West Germanic.
English (e.g., _î_ [i:] > [@I] > [aI]), German (e.g., _î_ [i:] > [@I] >
[aI]),  and Dutch (e.g., _ii_ > _ij_ [i:] > [@I] > [VI]) are earlier
examples, and Modern Randstad Dutch (e.g., _ee_ [e:] > [e.I] (> [E.I])) is
an example of a more recent development.  I wonder if tense monophthongs are
more likely to undergo this change.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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