Kerkrade dialect phonology

This article covers the phonology of the Kerkrade dialect, a West Ripuarian language variety spoken in parts of the Kerkrade municipality in the Netherlands (including the town of Kerkrade itself) and Herzogenrath in Germany.

Just like Colognian, the Kerkrade dialect is not uniform and there are some geographical differences. This article focuses on the variety spoken in the Dutch town of Kerkrade.

Consonants

In contrast to Limburgish and Standard Dutch, but like other varieties of Ripuarian, the Kerkrade dialect was partially affected by the High German consonant shift. For instance, the former /t/ became an affricate /ts/ in word-initial and word-final positions, after historical /l/ and /r/ as well as when doubled. Thus, the word for "two" is twee /ˈtʋeː/ in Standard Dutch, but tswai / zwei /ˈtswaɪ/ in the Kerkrade dialect, almost identical to Standard German zwei /ˈtsvaɪ/.[1]

Labial Alveolar Postalveolar Dorsal Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive voiceless p t k
voiced b d (ɡ)
Affricate voiceless ts tʃ
voiced dʒ
Fricative voiceless f s ʃ χ
voiced v z ʒ ʁ ɦ
Liquid l r
Approximant w j
  • /m, p, b/ are bilabial, whereas /f, v/ are labiodental.
  • The voiceless plosives /p, t, k/ are unaspirated as in Dutch and Colognian.
  • /w/ is realized as a bilabial approximant [β̞] in the onset and as labio-velar [w] in the coda, especially after /ɑ/.[2] In this article, both are transcribed with ⟨w⟩, following the recommendations of Carlos Gussenhoven regarding transcribing the corresponding Standard Dutch phone.[3]
  • Syllable-final /l/ tends to be velarized, especially after /ɑ/. It can also be velarized intervocalically after /ɑ/.[2]
  • /ŋ, k, ɡ/ are velar, /r/ is uvular, whereas /j/ is palatal.
    • /ɡ/ occurs only intervocalically.[4]
  • Most instances of historical /ɡ/ (/ɣ/ in Limburgish and (southern) Standard Dutch) have merged with /j/, so that the word for green in the Kerkrade dialect is jreun / jrön /ˈjrøːn/ (compare Standard Dutch groen /ˈɣrun/). Intervocalically after back vowels, the sound corresponding to Limburgish /ɣ/ is the uvular fricative /ʁ/, which is the only phonological environment in which this phoneme can occur.[5]
  • After phonological back vowels, the sounds corresponding to Limburgish [x, ɣ] are uvular [χ, ʁ], which is reflected in the way they are transcribed in this article. /ʁ/ contrasts with /r/ only after the long /uː/, /oː/ and /aː/, where /r/ triggers elongation of all three vowels. The two phonemes merge to [ʁ] in other environments (e.g. after /oə/, so that the consonants surrounding that diphthong in vroage / vrooege /ˈvroəʁə/ are indistinguishable from each other: [ˈvʁoəʁə]), much like in Luxembourgish. The merger of /ʁ/ with /r/ occurs also in the neighboring dialect of Lemiers, which suggests that this is a feature of Central Franconian dialects in general, rather than a Kerkrade innovation.[4][6][7]
  • After phonological front vowels and consonants, /χ/ surfaces as [ç]. Both [χ] and [ç] can appear within one lexeme, e.g. laoch / looch [ˈlɔːχ] and löcher [ˈlœçəʁ].[4]

Vowels
Vowel phonemes[8]
Front Central Back
unrounded rounded
short long short long short long short long
Close i iː y yː u uː
Close-mid e eː ø øː ə o oː
Open-mid ɛ ɛː œ œː ɔ ɔː
Open aː ɑ
Diphthongs closing ɛɪ   œʏ   ɔɪ   ɔʊ   aɪ   aʊ
centering iə   yə   uə   eə   œə   oə
  • Many words that have the long rounded close-mid vowels /øː/ and /oː/ in the neighboring Limburgish dialects have the short /ø/ and /o/ in Kerkrade - compare Limburgish good /ɣoːt/ with Kerkrade jód / jod /jot/, both meaning 'good'.
  • /ø, øː, œ, œː/ can be considered the umlauted variants of /o, oː, ɔ, ɔː/.[9]
  • /ə/ occurs only in unstressed syllables. It is also inserted in the historical consonant clusters of /l/ or /r/ followed by a labial or a velar consonant, as in helpe / hellepe /ˈɦɛləpə/ and sjterk / sterrek /ˈʃtɛrək/.[10]
  • /oə/ is the only centering diphthong that can occur before /r/.[4] The functional load of the /oə–oː/ contrast in this position is unclear.

Phonetic realization
  • Among the short front unrounded vowels, /i/ is close [i], /e/ is near-close [ɪ], whereas /ɛ/ is mid [ɛ̝]. Before /m, n, ŋ, l, r/, the last two are lowered to [e] and [æ], respectively. In this article, only the allophony of /ɛ/ is marked in phonetic transcription. This means that phonetically, the rounded counterpart of the short /e/ is /y/, as both are normally near-close, whereas both /ø/ and /i/ are unpaired as far as stressable vowels are concerned. This also means that at least /eː/, /ɛː/ and possibly also /yː/ and/or /øː/ do not have exact phonetic short counterparts, just like the open central /aː/; in addition, /y/ is unique among the stressable short vowels in that it can appear in the word-final position outside of function words, which makes it a free vowel like Standard Dutch /y/.[9]
  • The phonetic distance between /y/ and /ø/ is not very great; the former is a near-close vowel of unknown backness (either front [ʏ] or central [ʉ̞], like Standard Dutch ⟨uu⟩), whereas the latter is close-mid central [ɵ] (like Standard Dutch ⟨u⟩), much as in the Limburgish dialect of Hamont. Phonetically speaking, this makes /ø/ nothing more than a stressable counterpart of /ə/, although the two are phonologically distinct - just as in Standard Dutch. Word-final instances of /y/ are realized as a fully close vowel of unknown backness (either front [y] or central [ʉ]).[9][11]
  • /aː/ is a phonological back vowel like /ɑ/, and the two function as a long–short pair. The former is phonetically central [äː], whereas the latter is a genuine back vowel [ɑ].[12]
  • Before /r/, all of the long vowels are pronounced even longer than in Standard Dutch. In this position, the long /iː, yː, uː, eː, øː/ are realized with a slight schwa offglide [iːːə̯, yːːə̯, uːːə̯, eːːə̯, øːːə̯], which means that they approach the centering diphthongs /iə, yə, uə, eə, œə/, though the latter have a shorter first element (in addition to the lower starting point of /œə/). The remaining /oː/ and /aː/ are just elongated [oːː, aːː] without diphthongization in this position. The vowels are diphthongized and/or elongated even before intervocalic /r/, as in bedoere / beduhre [bəˈduːːə̯ʁə]. This allophony does not occur before the underlying /ʁ/, which means that it is differentiated from /r/ after /uː, oː, aː/ by the length of the preceding vowel (which is shorter before /ʁ/) and the lack of diphthongization of /uː/ before /ʁ/, though it is unclear whether those differences are consistently maintained.[2]

Pitch accent
Main article: Pitch-accent language § Franconian dialects

As most other Ripuarian and Limburgish dialects, the Kerkrade dialect features a distinction between the thrusting tone (Dutch: stoottoon, German: Schärfung or Stoßton), which has a shortening effect on the syllable (not shown in transcriptions in this article) and the slurring tone (Dutch: sleeptoon, German: Schleifton). In this article, the slurring tone is transcribed as a high tone, whereas the thrusting tone is left unmarked. This is nothing more than a convention, as the phonetics of the Kerkrade pitch accent are severely under-researched. There are minimal pairs, for example moer / Mur /ˈmuːr/ 'wall' - moer / Muhr /ˈmúːr/ 'carrot'.[13][14]

The pitch accent can be the only difference:[14]

  • Between words differentiated only by gender, as in the minimal pair de val / de Vall /də ˈvɑl/ - d'r val / der Vall /dər ˈvɑ́l/
  • Between the plural and singular, as in the minimal pair de peëd / de Peät /də ˈpeət/ - 't peëd / et Peät /ət ˈpéət/.
    • This is sometimes reinforced by other differences, e.g. de knieng / de Kning /də ˈkniŋ/ - d'r knien / der Knin /dər ˈknín/. Some words have two possible plural forms, one that is differentiated from the singular form only by tone and a more distinct one; compare de boom / de Boom /də ˈboːm/ with the umlauted de beum / de Bööm /də ˈbøːm/, which are plural forms of d'r boom / der Boom /dər ˈbóːm/.
  • Between inflected and uninflected forms of adjectives, compare rónge / ronge /ˈroŋə/ with rónk / ronk /ˈróŋk/.
  • Between the diminutive and the primitive form.

See also

References
  1. Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (1997), p. 36.
  2. Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (1997), p. 18.
  3. Gussenhoven (2007), pp. 336–337.
  4. Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (1997), p. 17.
  5. Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (1997), pp. 17, 126.
  6. Gilles & Trouvain (2013), p. 68.
  7. Bodelier (2011), p. 19.
  8. Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (1997), pp. 15–17.
  9. Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (1997), p. 16.
  10. Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (1997), pp. 16, 18.
  11. Verhoeven (2007), pp. 221, 223.
  12. Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (1997), pp. 15, 18.
  13. Fournier, Rachel; Gussenhoven, Carlos; Peters, Jörg; Swerts, Marc; Verhoeven, Jo. "The tones of Limburg". Archived from the original on 26 February 2012. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
  14. Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (1997), p. 19.

Bibliography
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.