Norms and usage in 19th-century Southern Dutch

This chapter discusses norms and usage in 19th-century Southern Dutch. After a brief sociohistorical sketch, we provide an overview of the Southern normative tradition, discussing its roots in the 18th century and its further development in the early 19th century. Next, we introduce three case studies: the spelling of /a:/ in closed syllables, the spelling of t-suffixed present indicative endings in d-stem verbs, and the representation of lengthened Wgm. ? before a consonant cluster with -r. For each of these features, we investigate the way they are dealt with in normative publications, as well as exploring their frequency in a manuscript corpus. Finally, we discuss two possible scenarios concerning a link between norms and usage, applying both scenarios to the features under discussion.

ISBN:978-90-272-0082-2

Jaar van publicatie:2014

Trefwoorden:historical sociolinguistics, Dutch, language norms, language variation