Pronunciation of Infinitives and Plurals in Dutch

The pronunciation of Dutch infinitives and plurals varies. Though all infinitives and the majority of Dutch plurals end with -en, they have different pronunciations. These differences are based on the dialect.

Many Dutch plurals end with -en. Examples include huizen (houses), tassen (cups) and vrienden (friends). The infinitive marker is also -en. It appears in the infinitives drinken (drink), eten (eat) and schrijven (write). 

In Belgium and the southern Netherlands, it is common to pronoun the -en of infinitives and plurals as a schwa and alveolar nasal. Unlike in the Dutch of cities such as Amsterdam and The Hague, the nasal is retained. The ending thus consists of two segments.

In the western and central Netherlands, it is common to drop the nasal and only pronounce the schwa. The result is that only one segment is articulated. The word-final nasal is not pronounced.

In the northern and eastern Netherlands, the nasal is retained but it is syllabic. This means that the schwa is not pronounced. The nasal is not in the syllable coda but in the nucleus. 

In the western and central Netherlands the nasal is dropped, but in the northern and eastern Netherlands, the schwa is dropped. This affects the syllabification of infinitives and plurals. In those areas where the nasal is dropped, the word tassen (cups) can be syllabified tɑ.sə and in those areas where the nasal is syllabic, the same word can be syllabified to tɑs.n̩. The syllabic nasal forms its own syllable.

The infinitive marker and regular plural marker of Dutch is -en. This has three different pronunciations. They depend on the dialect. In Belgium and the southern Netherlands it consists of a schwa and nasal. In the western and central Netherlands, the nasal is not pronounced, and in the eastern and northern Netherlands the ending is realized as a syllabic nasal.

Poem (The Moon)

The Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the poem The Moon. It is short but full of meaning. Here it is:

The Moon

The moon has a face like the clock in the hall,

She shines on thieves on the garden wall,

On streets and fields and harbour quays,

And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees.

The squalling cat and the squeaking mouse,

The howling dog by the door of the house,

The bat that lies in bed at noon,

All love to be out by the light of the moon.

But all of the things that belong to the day

Cuddle to sleep to be out of her way;

And flowers and children close their eyes

Till up in the morning the sun shall arise.

The poem The Moon consists of three verses with four stanzas each. The rhyme scheme is aabb ccdd eeff. Robert Louis Stevenson uses personification throughout the poem. The moon has a face, many things belong to the day and want to be out of the moon's way, and flowers close their eyes. Though the poem is short, it is full of imagery and meaning.

Meidling L

One of the most distintive accents of Vienna is associated with the district of Meidling. In standard German, the lateral is alveolar and is not velarized. The Meidling L, however, is apicodental and velarized. It is pronounced with the tongue tip rather than the tongue blade. The velarization of the lateral occurs in languages such as Russian, English and Dutch.

The German words elf (eleven), Kleid (dress) Leben (life) schnell (fast) and Stahl (steel) are pronounced with an alveolar lateral in Standard German. However, in the Meidling accent, they are pronounced with a velarized apicodental lateral. The lateral velar occurs in both the syllable onset and coda. It is not considered standard pronunciation.

The accent of Vienna is distinct from that of Standard German. However, the accent of Meidling is also a distinct accent of Viennese German. The lateral associated with Meidling forms part of the basilect of Viennese German.

Pronunciation of /r/ in Liverpool English

The accent of Liverpool has many features which distinguish it from others. Though the accent is non-rhotic, the pronounciation of pre-vocalic /r/ is often a flap. This is also true in onset clusters and intervocalic position.

In the accent of Liverpool the /r/ is often flapped in the following words:

agreement

brush

dry

free

horror

orange

proud

sorry

train

very

The /r/ can be pronounced in many ways. In non-rhotic accents of English, it is either deleted or pronounced as a schwa in the syllable-coda. For other positions, it is often an alveolar approximant, but in the Liverpool accent, it is often realized as an alveolar flap.

Order of Masculine and Feminine Nouns in Binomial Phrases

The order of many binomial phrases is fixed. This is the case with binomial phrases such as come and go, black and white and here or there. This also applies to binomial phrases with masculine and feminine nouns.

In English, many binomial phrases place the masculine noun first. Consider the following phrases:

boys and girls

husband and wife

king and queen

men and women

prince and princess

However, English also has many binomial phrases  which place the feminine noun first. Consider the following:

aunt and uncle

bride and bridegroom

ladies and gentlemen

mother and father

niece and nephew

With names, it is customary to place the masculine noun first. This is the case with John and Mary, Romeo and Juliet and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

The order of masculine and feminine nouns in binomial phrases cannot be predicted. However, the masculine noun is given first with names and with nobility. It is also often the case that the shorter word precedes the longer one. Nevertheless, the order of masculine and feminine nouns in binomial phrases is usually predetermined.   

Optional Pleonastic Subject

In English the word it is often a pleonastic subject. This means that it has no real meaning. It merely occupies subject position. However, in certain English sentences, the pleonastic subject is optional.

The sentence It is raining contains a pleonastic subject. Here the pronoun it merely serves to introduce the sentence. Compare this to the Spanish sentence Está lloviendo. Here the subject is empty and the sentence consists of the auxiliary verb and present participle.

English has an optional pleonastic subject in sentences which begin with the words today, tomorrow and yesterday. Here are examples:

Today it is rainy.

Today is rainy.

Tomorrow it will be my birthday.

Tomorrow will be my birthday.

Yesterday it was a beautiful day.

Yesterday was a beautiful day.

The deletion of the pleonastic subject does not occur with participles. It is possible in the sentence Today is rainy, but cannot be deleted in the sentence Today it is raining. The adjective rainy must be used with deletion of the pleonastic subject.

The pleonastic subject it occurs in many sentences. It has no real meaning because it does not replace a noun. In certain sentences, the pleonastic subject is optional and can be deleted.

Dutch Letter Combination OE

The Dutch letter combination oe is pronounced [u]. Many Dutch words with the letter combination oe have the letter u in German. The Dutch letter u represents a high front rounded vowel and is pronounced as in French. The following Dutch words with the letter combination oe have the letter u in German:

bloed Blut (blood)

boek Buch (book)

genoeg genug (enough)

goed gut (good)

hoed hut (hat)

koe Kuh (cow)

koek Kuchen (cake)

moeder Mutter (mother)

stoel Stuhl (chair)

voet Fuẞ (foot)

In Dutch the sound [u] is represented by the letters oe. This is not the case in other Germanic languages. In German, a closely related language, the letter u appears in many words which have the letters oe in Dutch.