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Individuele verschillen in de fonologisering van taalverandering
- Amsterdam University Press
- Source: Nederlandse Taalkunde, Volume 29, Issue 1, Jun 2024, p. 4 - 32
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- 01 Jun 2024
Abstract
Northern Standard Dutch, i.e. the standard variety spoken in the Netherlands, is currently subject to an ongoing vowel shift that started approximately 100 years ago. This so-called ‘Polder shift’ changes tense mid vowels to upgliding diphthongs and lowers the nuclei of diphthongs. Sociolinguistic migrants – speakers of Southern Standard Dutch who moved from Flanders to The Netherlands – may adopt these sound changes, but do so with substantial individual differences in both qualitative and quantitative respects. In addition, there are individual differences between non-migrant speakers of the two varieties. I analyze the Polder shift as an ongoing process of phonologization, relating these individual differences to two separate but interrelated properties: phonology, viz. allophonic conditioning, and phonetic implementation, viz. the degree of diphthongization and lowering. I conclude that these individual differences represent different stages of this ongoing phonologization.