title: The similarity of plural endings and linking elements in regional speech variants of Dutch.
abstract: The plural suffix -en (noot+en, 'nuts') is pronounced differently by speakers coming from different regions of the Netherlands. In this study, we compared the pronunciation of the plural suffix -en in phrases (noot+en kraken, 'to crack nuts') with linking en in compounds (noot+en+kroker, 'nutcracker'), because some claim that both are similar (Schreuder, Neijt, van der Weide, & Baayen, 1998), whereas others claim that they are not (Verkuyl, 2007). The pronunciations of 109 participants coming from five regions of the Netherlands were therefore compared in a picture naming task. A systematic relation between the pronunciations of plural -en and linking en was detected: Speakers from the Northern and Eastern regions produced [(upside-down e)n] most often for both the linking elements and plural endings, while speakers from the Middle and Western regions produced [upside-down e] most often for both. For speakers from the Southern region, we found no preference to pronounce either [upside-down e] or [upside-down e n] in compounds or phrases. It is concluded that Dutch speakers often do not distinguish plural -en from linking en in their speech production. Possibly, speakers of Dutch consider linking en and plural -en as the same morpheme.
authors.affiliation: Radboud University Nijmegen, Centre for Language Studies, P.O. Box 310, 6500 AH Nijmegen, The Netherlands. ejm.hanssen@gmail.com
authors.forename: Esther
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hanssen
authors.forename: Arina
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Banga
authors.forename: Anneke
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Neijt
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schreuder
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010700:Phonetics; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D012660:Semantics; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D014705:Verbal Behavior