Help talk:IPA/Dutch

Rhotic

Hey user:Nardog. The Dutch rhotic has a number of possible pronunciations and the closest ones known to English speakers are the rolled R or the French R, and the bunched R in the coda which sounds close to the English language R, the approximant [ɹ]. --Esperfulmo (talk) 00:23, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

@Esperfulmo The article currently mentions 'rolled R', with a link to alveolar tap/flap, this seems weird, as the rolled R is defined as a trill. Are you sure the American [ɾ] is that different from the Dutch [ɾ]? Exarchus (talk) 10:31, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Maybe you got confused by Wikipedia saying the trill is often reduced to a "flap". But there is no source saying it is a flap, as distinct from a tap, so I changed the phonology article to "tap". Exarchus (talk) 12:19, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, the rolled R is either the trilled or the flapped R which are both from the variations of the phoneme for the Dutch.

Yes, very sure that the voiced alveolar flap (sounding like one trill) is very different from the voiced alveolar tap (sounding closer to the D sound/plosive). Yes, we see on Wikipedia both terms used interchangeably, but they don't sound the same. Even the user who made the audio file for both consonants failed to produce a correct tap sound. If you natively speak a language with one of them and another which has the other, you can definitely tell the difference. There was a suggestion to use a small capital D for the tap to distinguish it from the flap ɾ, but I don't know why both are transcribed with the same character. See the Americanist phonetic notation#Rhotics table. --Esperfulmo (talk) 12:24, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

The sound recording on wiktionary for 'city' (Audio (US)) sounds to me exactly like one would say Dutch 'sirrie' (except that this isn't a word). I see no reason why it can't be used as an approximation (and I'm not convinced it isn't exactly the same). Exarchus (talk) 14:00, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Quoting from "The Sociophonetics and Phonology of Dutch r": "even those taps that are distinguishable in terms of their articulation from single-contact trills are auditorily/perceptually extremely similar to them." (p.170) Exarchus (talk) 14:29, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

From reading the mentioned paper, I can't conclude that Dutch 'taps' [ɾ] aren't real taps, but single-contact trills (which, as the paper indeed says, are articulatorily different). So I really think American intervocalic 't' is exactly the same thing. Exarchus (talk) 14:57, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

To quote extensively: "In conclusion, the predominance of taps in onsets makes any assumption that they are synchronically actually short (single-contact) trills less probable. If so, one would expect more variation with trills with two or three contacts, especially since the number of contacts are not under active control from the speaker. It is, in other words, not likely that there is an invariant trill target for all alveolar onset r, that is consequently not met due to articulatory or aerodynamic constraints. Nevertheless, since taps alternate freely with other manners of articulation in onsets, including trills (almost all speakers do variably use trills), it is demonstrably not the case that the tap is the single r-target either. This points towards an analysis in which both trills and taps, as well as fricatives and approximants, are available to all speakers who use alveolar variants in onsets." (p.176) Exarchus (talk) 15:56, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

OK, the paper mentions some difference between American [ɾ] and (in this case) Spanish [ɾ]:

"Taps can also be allophones of other, non-rhotic, sounds, such as, in American English, intervocalic /t/ in ladder, latter, city. There are phonetic differences between the two, apparent in x-ray footage (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996): for an American English speaker producing a tap-/t/ there is anticipation during the preceding vowel in the form of retraction and raising of the tongue. The tongue is then moved forward to make the contact and returns to the floor of the mouth. For a Spanish speaker producing a tap-/r/, there is no such anticipation, but a quick upward and downward movement of only the tongue-tip." (p.171)

I still think using one as an approximation of the other is not far-fetched. Look at it the other way: how would you give an approximation for Dutch speakers of the American intervocalic 't'? The tap-r of course. Exarchus (talk) 17:43, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Interesting quote from Articulatory Variation of the Alveolar Tap and Implications for Sound Change (Cathcart, 2012): "An acoustic and cineradiographic study by Monnot and Freeman (1972) shows that acoustically, English and Spanish alveolar taps are indistinguishable from each other."

I would not be surprised if someone showed that a perceived difference comes from the brain classifying the sounds as either /t/~/d/ or /r/... Exarchus (talk) 23:55, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Assessing Rhotic Production by Bilingual Spanish Speakers (Cummings & Montrul, 2020): "The English flap and the Spanish tap are nearly identical, in that they are both produced with a rapid movement of the tongue tip or tongue blade against the alveolar ridge" Exarchus (talk) 10:01, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

What you may be thinking of is the situation in Arabic as I'm reading it on the Arabic phonology page: "The trill /r/ is sometimes reduced to a single vibration when single, but it remains potentially a trill, not a flap [ɾ]"

As I said, no indication this is the case in Dutch (or Spanish). Exarchus (talk) 13:33, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

So it would make sense to me to use [r̆] (r + breve) to indicate a single-vibration alveolar trill (what you seem to call 'flap'), and [ɾ] for the alveolar tap (often called flap).

And now I think I've finished rambling about taps/flaps ;-) Exarchus (talk) 15:39, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I listened to wikt:city and it doesn't sound to me like a flap. For the case of the Egyptian pronunciation, the rhotic is in a free variation between a trill and a flap. The flap is quite more popular in the Nile Delta and some speakers from northern Egypt might exclusively use one variant. The flap is also used in Persian and other languages. They never sound quite close to the tap [D].

I know what you mean by recognizing sounds by one's brain that could be deceiving. Approximating the Dutch rhotic to the rolled R makes more sense, because:

• it alternates between an alveolar trill and a weaker variant
• the vast majority of people alternating between 2 variants have an alveolar trill versus an alveolar flap.

So which rhotics does your area use or what do you personally pronounce? There are those who use a uvular main variant. The Dutch case is very interesting! --Esperfulmo (talk) 17:30, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

An interesting example of a D like sound alternating with an R like sound in Hindustani. Listen to this cover of an Indian classic: [1], the title is spelled with a D: Thoda Resham Lagta Hai with an assumed /ɖ/ voiced retroflex plosive, even though it sounds like a [ɽ] voiced retroflex flap intervocalically. --Esperfulmo (talk) 18:14, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

- I know about this alternance between [ɖ] and [ɽ] in Indian languages and at first I found it strange as in my intuition, 'd' and 'r' have nothing to do with each other. But I figured out they really are articulatorily close.

- "I listened to wikt:city and it doesn't sound to me like a flap." In your terminology, it isn't a flap, but a tap and that's what the [ɾ] symbol is used for. And yes, it sounds like perfectly valid Dutch to me (when I think of it as an English word, I might be tempted to hear a /d/-like sound).

- The argument for approximating Dutch alveolar R as 'rolled R' is not that strong, as most of the time (in normal speech, not in sound fragments specifically pronounced for Wikipedia) it isn't a trill [r] and also not a reduced/short trill (what you call a flap), although people will intuitively think of it like that, but a tap. And that is what speakers of English know best anyway.

And yes, the 'R' I use is alveolar (not uvular or 'bunched'), so I am very familiar with it. And I have done some 'experiments' with pronouncing R's and come to the conclusion that the 'short' alveolar R in Dutch is not a 'long' R reduced to one contact, as I find it difficult to consistently produce just one trill (and not two, or zero). So I think that by now I know perfectly what you mean with flap vs. tap, and the short alveolar realisation of R in Dutch is clearly a tap (when I pronounce it, I can't prolong it, if I try really hard, I have to change something inside my mouth, and then I get a trill). And I'm pretty sure that Spanish /ɾ/ is as well.

- Whether Persian uses a flap or a tap, I'm not sure, do you have first hand knowledge of this? I can imagine it could be Arabic influence. But then in this paper it is said that the most prominent rhotic variant in Persian is a fricative (about which Wikipedia doesn't say anything). So for the moment I'm confused about this. Exarchus (talk) 20:11, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

If you want to see frequencies of alveolar trill vs. alveolar tap in Dutch, you can look at 'The sociophonetics and phonology of Dutch r' (if you can find it) and then for example starting at page 87 for Antwerp: 14% voiced alveolar trill in word onset vs. 65.7 % voiced alveolar tap (+ some other varieties), intervocally 5.7 % trill vs. 68.6 % tap and at syllable coda it is apparently most often 'voiceless alveolar trill/tap with frication', something I hadn't heard about before and which I am no doubt constantly using. Exarchus (talk) 20:38, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I suppose some of the (short) trills might be classified as 'flaps' (in your terminology), but that is not what the tap is. Exarchus (talk) 21:28, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing all of the sources <3

From the first look, the paper mentioned 3 Persian allophones and used the term tap. Never mind the Persian rhotic for now.

Regarding Spanish, it has a trilled version spelled with double R, e.g. caro vs. carro which doesn't sound like a long flap.

I actually don't consider myself using different linguistic terminology. The Americanist phonetic notation has two symbols for each of the consonants. A single trill still sounds stronger than the flap, and Egyptians using either the flap or the trill could normally geminate it. E.g. [ˈmɑr.rɑ, mɑɾ.ɾɑ] "once" vs. [ˈmɑ.rɑ, mɑ.ɾɑ] "woman" (vulgar)(مَرَّة vs. مَرَا). There are even those who use an approximant and geminate it, but an approximant is considered a lisp in Egypt. In Afroasiatic languages, gemination is common and phonemic.

Perhaps, the tap version can't be geminated or some languages can't geminate their rhotic. An interesting example is the word for "football" in Modern Hebrew was translated to כדור-רגל kadur regel, but evolved to כדורגל kaduregel because people pronounce it with a normally lengthed rhotic. Classical Hebrew accepted gemination, except for some consonants, like the rhotic. --Esperfulmo (talk) 02:26, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Does the Spanish [r] (for example here) sound to you like an Arabic [r] (long trill) to you? Maybe there's a subtle difference there.

If you can find a description somewhere what Americanist phonetic notation actually means with 'tap' vs. 'flap', that would be useful. The Arabic phonology page also says: "the pronunciation of this single trill is between a trill [r] and a flap [ɾ]", where 'flap' is no doubt intended as 'tap'.

I can guarantee you that the tap [ɾ] in Dutch (and American English) is physically impossible to prolong/geminate. You'd have to start all over again and it sounds comical when I try it. As the Sociophonetics paper says (p.172), a short "schwa-like vocoid" gets inserted when [ɾ] is not preceded by a vowel, so repeating this tap sounds like [əɾəɾəɾəɾ]. Exarchus (talk) 09:36, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

This paper talks about Arabic 'taps', but I suppose you would call them 'flaps', because at one point it mentions "single long taps", which is impossible. So there seems to be total confusion about this in the literature. Exarchus (talk) 09:57, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

My personal guess is that the 'tap' will be more common cross-linguistically than the 'flap', because for producing a 'one-contact rhotic', the tap is ideal. Would be interesting to know for sure, and I'm really curious what the situation in Hindustani is. How does this sound to you? Sounds like a tap to me. Exarchus (talk) 10:08, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

The Urdu 'Audio (PK)' file for the same word seems to have a different R. Is this what you'd call a flap? Exarchus (talk) 10:25, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

The Urdu audio was a trill and the Hindi was a flap. Despite how the Urdu example was notated as a flap. --Esperfulmo (talk) 02:02, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

If you call the Hindi example a flap, then I'm confused and not sure anymore if there's a real difference between what you call a tap and a flap... Exarchus (talk) 15:36, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

In places where you might think there could be a geminated tap in Dutch, like the derivation 'doorrijden', I think that the first 'r' will in practice rather be this voiceless tap/trill with frication, and the second 'r' a voiced tap (in fast speech, this will rather be just one tap, or maybe an approximant; a trill would be emphatic I'd say). When I insist on making two voiced taps, there is a clear pause and it sounds like two words. Exarchus (talk) 13:34, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I've started to notice something: languages that commonly have geminated consonants and that use the alveolar trill as main rhotic (Arabic, Italian, Finnish) do not seem to use the alveolar tap as a weakened form (it can be an allophone of /d/ in Finnish). As geminated consonants are normally just long versions of the short consonants, using a pair 'alveolar tap / alveolar trill' would be an exception to that rule, as the articulation is (as Sebregts calls it) "completely different". Dutch and Spanish don't generally have geminated consonants (don't let Dutch spelling confuse you there), so the brain doesn't have to have strict rules for producing short vs. long consonants.

At least that's my hypothesis. Exarchus (talk) 14:53, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Notice that in Finnish, /d/ (which has a tap allophone) does not have a geminated form in native words. This might be relevant for my hypothesis. Exarchus (talk) 15:19, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

One thing about the Spanish trill: studies have shown that many or most speakers do not actually use the 'official' trill. This paper says: 'Hammond (1999:147) concludes that the “typical” trill is “absent in the normal discourse of the vast majority of native speakers.”'

That's why I linked to the 'rincón' page, where the speaker has a 'real' Spanish trill. Exarchus (talk) 21:04, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

The Spanish example sounded like an ordinary trill. --Esperfulmo (talk) 02:00, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

About Arabic, I was very specific on mentioning only Egyptian (Arabic), the spoken dialect. Most literature about "Arabic" studies one region of the Arabic speaking world and generalizes it from coast to coast (e.g. Watson researching Yemeni dialects), ignoring the great variation in local traditions and not distinguishing between reading Literary Arabic and spoken dialects. That's really another topic. In all Arabic dialects including Literary Arabic, all consonants accept gemination, even the [h] and the [ʔ]. I know it sounds very weird, but it's true.

If I'd distinguish the flap from the tap, I'd say the flap has a slight vibration whereas the tap has a sound similar to a weak plosive with an even lighter vibration than the flap.

It was a very interesting discussion about rhotics.

Let's wrap it up so as no one says we're getting out of the topic of improving the content of the IPA page :) --Esperfulmo (talk) 02:20, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

wiktionary page

@Esperfulmo I came across the Dutch pronunciation page on wiktionary and I think it's full of inconsistencies/inaccuracies, this one is better. Would you want to update the wiktionary page (or just copy/paste this one there)?

One thing that might be improved here is that there's a difference in quality (in standard speech) between /ɑ/ and /aː/, so if you use 'father' for both, this is not so accurate. /aː/ is more like the General American example here (but long), and /ɑ/ more like the RP pronunciation example (but short). By the way, the sound example for Dutch 'bad' sounds to me like a Brabantian [a] pronunciation, so not the 'official' [ɑ]. (edit: I'm not so sure anymore it'd be Brabantian, but it does sound Belgian to me. Anyway, the difference in vowel quality between 'bad' and 'aap' in the recordings seems clear to me.) Exarchus (talk) 17:19, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, I changed the approximation for /aː/ to "British lad, but long", I obviously mean modern British and not the older RP. Exarchus (talk) 21:39, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Hey Exarchus. The table has approximations that will never be precise. It's for users who can't read IPA. About Wiktionary guides, I personally don't think there should be a page there for each language, since they are mostly copied from Wikipedia and a simple redirect would be sufficient. I normally don't rely of the guides there unless they have some peculiarities to follow there instead of what's common here, like Arabic transliterations. --Esperfulmo (talk) 12:28, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Assimilation taken too far?

Hi everyone, I came across the phonetic transcription in the article about the Afsluitdijk, which is transcribed as [ˈɑfslœydɛik]. I see where this comes from, but the way in which assimilation in the <-td-> sequence is rendered here strikes me as excessive. The final [-t] of ‘sluit’, which becomes [-d] through regressive assimilation, does not disappear without a trace, certainly not in reasonably careful speech. If there was a (hypothetical) Afslui-dijk, it would not be pronounced exactly the same as the (existing) Afsluitdijk. In reality, I think that the sound is most likely to appear as an unreleased stop: [ˈɑfslœyd̚dɛɪk] (I know that this symbol is not used in the current guidelines), so the articulatory organs move to the position for articulating [d], but there is no audible burst. Within the existing guidelines, I would probably transcribe the word as [ˈɑfslœyd.dɛik], with the full stop indicating a syllable break. It would certainly not be wrong to pronounce the word this way. What do others think? Isoglosse (talk) 07:45, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I have checked the archives of the talk pages about any discussion on this topic, but came up empty. I have recently stumbled across another example where I think that the assimilation that is transcribed assumes a speech style that does not match the audience (i.e., non-native speakers who seek guidance on pronunciation and are unlikely to pronounce names in an allegro style).

The name Marius Job Cohen is transcribed as [ˈmaːrijə ˈɕɔp koːˈɦɛn]. As I said before, I see where this comes from. A fluent speaker of Dutch might say that in rapid speech. But [ˈmaːrijəɕ ˈɕɔp koːˈɦɛn] (with the fricative repeated at the end of the first part) or [ˈmaːrijəɕ ˈjɔp koːˈɦɛn] (with the assimilation only transcribed in the first part) are equally correct and maybe better transcriptions. Assuming a careful speech style, [ˈmaːrijəs ˈjɔp koːˈɦɛn] (with no assimilation across syllable boundaries) is also possible. In my view, all transcriptions are valid – but which one is best?

I am not sure if the current transcription style, which omits symbols and thereby suggests a complete merger of the sounds involved in assimilation, serves encyclopedic users best. In analogy to the Afsluitdijk example above, I think that I would suggest to transcribe the name as [ˈmaːrijəɕ ˈjɔp koːˈɦɛn], which indicates the phonetic change, but leaves all parts of the name intact. If transcription guidelines would be clarified in this respect, I don’t think that all existing transcriptions would have to be changed, but that this could be implemented going forward.

As there have been no replies to my previous post, I would like to page some recent editors of the guidelines: @Sol505000 @IvanScrooge98, @Nardog, @Exarchus, @Esperfulmo. Happy to hear your take on that. Isoglosse (talk) 13:56, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

I don’t have strong feelings on either option, to be honest. And I’m not an expert on Dutch phonology either, so I can’t have an opinion as to what solutions best describe the usual realizations. What I care most about is consistency, whatever we decide to do. I’ve recently gone through all the transcriptions pointing here to fix old conventions that hadn’t been updated. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 14:08, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! I quickly browsed through Geert Booij’s The Phonology of Dutch (1999) this afternoon and found a couple of remarks that seemed relevant to me. In the chapter about phonological rules, he says:

“Phonological rules like Progressive Assimilation, which apply obligatorily within prosodic words and compounds, become optional in larger domains: for instance, in phonological phrases.” (p. 59; boldface added by me)

So for instance, devoicing /tz/ in ‘zoutzuur’ to [ts] or /tɣ/ to [tx] in ‘straatgoot’ is obligatory (because these form a prosodic word), but it can be optional in names like Gerrit Zalm, with /t|z/, or Albert Gerard Koenders, with /t|ɣ/ (where | indicates a word boundary).

In the introduction to connected speech phenomena, he says:

“In connected speech, words are subject to rules which are often optional, in that they are dependent on style of speech and speech rate. […] The use of these processes is often characteristic of less monitored, casual speech.” (p. 125; boldface added by me)

And in the subchapter about nasal assimilation (7.2.2):

“It should be remembered, however, that such observations are based on intuitions only, and require experimental underpinnings. Moreover, as pointed out by Nolan (1992), assimilations may be only partial.” (p. 147; boldface added by me)

So, what I am trying to say is: The way Dutch is currently transcribed treats optional, partial processes as obligatory, complete processes. I would suggest to err much more on the side of caution here and only reflect obligatory phonological processes in transcriptions, especially given the fact that we do not aim to transcribe rapid, connected speech. Isoglosse (talk) 17:13, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

I wonder whether there are experimental studies about the pronunciation of something like 'Afsluitdijk'. I'm inclined to think that those who regularly use the word really say [ˈɑfslœydɛik] (and consistently so), while those who aren't really familiar with it would tend to say [ˈɑfslœyd̚dɛɪk]. Exarchus (talk) 17:32, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Transcribing Marius Job Cohen as [ˈmaːrijə ˈɕɔp koːˈɦɛn] seems a bit too far to me. It could suggest that the pronunciation of 'Marius' is [ˈmaːrijə] and that of 'Job' is [ˈɕɔp]. Not showing assimilations between words might be better. Exarchus (talk) 17:52, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

We might also introduce the ‿ symbol to the guide. I had considered proposing that because I agree that transcriptions like those are confusing. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 18:02, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

That would be an idea, but is it necessary to show the assimilation when it isn't obligatory?

But I am inclined to think that the transcription [ˈɑfslœydɛik] is fine. Exarchus (talk) 18:33, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Two points about this:

I think that Booij’s (or actually Nolan’s) observation about assimilation being partial is important. The fact that there is no audible stop at the end of the second syllable of ‘Afsluitdijk’ does not mean that the (elided) stop has not left its trace in that syllable (e.g., with respect to vowel quality or quantity). Not transcribing it at all seems to suggest to me that it was not there in the first place and that it must never be pronounced, not even in slow and careful speech. But this would be incorrect.

I am happy to agree that people who frequently talk about the Afsluitdijk are likely to say [ˈɑfslœydɛik] or something along these lines. But [ˈɑfslœyd.dɛik] is correct as well – and much clearer for non-native speakers who look for guidance. I would like to find a transcription convention that makes sure that the pronunciation we represent is common (in a careful speech style), but also gives enough information to readers. If they have any proficiency in Dutch, connected speech phenomena will happen anyway.

Two minor points I also wanted to mention: First, let’s not forget that ‘Afsluitdijk’ is not the same as the name of a person. I am much more willing to agree with [ˈɑfslœydɛik] than with [ˈmaːrijə ˈɕɔp]. Second, we try to make transcriptions that work for all varieties of Dutch. I am not sure if Dutch as spoken in Belgium and Suriname behaves exactly the same as Netherlandic Dutch when it comes to assimilation. Staying closer to a phonological transcription (similar to the way English is transcribed here) ensures that the transcriptions will apply to the language as a whole. Isoglosse (talk) 18:52, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

This paper says: "Dutch is reported to prohibit long consonants, including those derived by external sandhi". The next line does indicate that this apparently isn't always correct, but the example seems to be about external sandhi ('raaf fraai' vs. 'ra fraai').

So while you can no doubt say [ˈɑfslœyd̚dɛɪk] as a way to clarify how the word is composed (and this is useful for people who never heard about this 'Afsluitdijk'), I doubt it is natural Dutch. It's not because people think they are pronouncing it differently than they would say 'Afsluidijk', that there really is a phonetical difference, that's where you need an experimental study. Exarchus (talk) 19:26, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Great find, thank you! There is a manuscript version of the paper that is freely accessible and a poster that nicely summarises the study.

The results say that ‘fake geminates’ (i.e., double /r/ that arises when a word ending in /r/ is adjacent to a word that begins with /r/) are not longer than a single /r/, but that the resulting sound carries characteristics of both the final /r/ (which is retroflex/bunched in some varieties of Dutch) and the initial /r/ (which is uvular or alveolar). Or in the words of the authors:

“These results suggest that Dutch degemination does not involve categorical segmental deletion, as previously suggested, but instead it has constraints on phonetic consonant duration that limit temporal gemination.” (my boldface)

Assuming that other consonant combinations behave similarly, we could conclude that [ˈmaːrijə ˈɕɔp] is an incorrect transcription for ‘Marius Job’ because it suggests that /s/ and /j/ merge into one single sound (that would be ‘categorical segmental deletion’). Based on these results, it seems more likely that there is a sound that starts like an /s/ and ends like a /j/ (with an /ɕ/-like transition phase). The transcription that renders this best may simply be [ˈmaːrijəs ˈjɔp].

With respect to the ‘Afsluitdijk’, I think it makes sense to remind ourselves of the audience. No person who is remotely fluent in Dutch would look up the pronunciation of that word. This is for people who don’t speak Dutch. Based on the current transcription, they might end up saying (clearly and carefully) [ˈɑf.slœy.dɛik], which is more likely to come across as incorrect than saying [ˈɑf.slœyd.dɛik]. Isoglosse (talk) 11:42, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the paper gives some arguments for not bothering with giving (optional) assimilation between words.

But I don't think it is relevant for the case of 'Afsluitdijk' as this is a compound, where Booij suggests (in the quote you gave previously) that such rules are obligatory. Exarchus (talk) 12:12, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Agree. I didn’t want to imply that the paper is relevant for the case of ‘Afsluitdijk’. (As you said, it is a compound rather than a phrase. And the paper is about fricatives rather than stop consonants.)

One thing to consider is that final consonants are also relevant for the distribution of vowels. When we completely omit a final consonant, this seems to imply things about the distribution that are probably incorrect. Certain vowels only occur in closed (or checked) syllables. In Dutch, /ɔ/ would be an example. /oː/ occurs in both open and closed syllables, so we have both /poː/ ‘po’ and /poːt/ ‘poot’, but only /pɔt/ ‘pot’, not */pɔ/. (Old news for anyone who speaks Dutch, of course.) But if we transcribe ‘potdicht’ as [pɔˈdɪxt], we suddenly have the ‘impossible’ syllable /pɔ/. From a phonological perspective, [pɔdˈdɪxt] would solve this problem, but only if it is not phonetically inaccurate.

So it would be really nice to also find research on the actual pronunciation of these stop combinations, but I haven’t been able to find anything so far. Isoglosse (talk) 15:09, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there would be a problem in having /pɔtˈdɪxt/ resulting in [pɔˈdɪxt]. But /ɔ/ very much occurs in open syllables, as in 'potten'.

And I don't believe [pɔdˈdɪxt] can be correct. By the way, the Belgian pronunciation is rather [pɔˈtɪxt] I think. Exarchus (talk) 15:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Cases like ‘potten’ are usually explained by ambisyllabicity, which means that the consonant is assumed to belong both to the first and the second syllable, so basically /ˈpɔt.tən/, which of course is phonetically rendered as [ˈpɔtən]. B-class vowels in the following quotation are /ɪ, ʏ, ɛ, ɔ, ɑ/:

“Intervocalic consonants following a B-class vowel always become ambisyllabic in Dutch, at least under the assumption that B-class vowels only occur in closed syllables.”

It’s a bit weird, I think, that Dutch linguistics has worried about syllables with B-class vowels in cases like ‘potten’, but does not seem to have considered or discussed cases like ‘potdicht’.

Interesting observation, by the way, relating to Belgian Dutch. We’re not on Wiktionary, luckily, so we don’t have to worry too much about ‘potdicht’. But it is important that we try to find a transcription style that works for any variety of Dutch. Isoglosse (talk) 16:40, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

"It’s a bit weird, I think, that Dutch linguistics has worried about syllables with B-class vowels in cases like ‘potten’, but does not seem to have considered or discussed cases like ‘potdicht’."

I think they are supposed to behave exactly the same. Exarchus (talk) 16:54, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi Isoglosse. I think your last suggestion is meaningful and scientific. We shouldn't overdoe casual speech transcription. In fact, we don't do that in practice with other languages. --Esperfulmo (talk) 23:10, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi, thank you for your reply! Good point about checking what the guidelines for other languages say (English may be relevant as a benchmark and maybe German as a related language).

Assimilation may not be equally strong in all languages, but much of it is just unavoidable coarticulation. I don’t think that John Bolton’s name would be transcribed /ˈdʒɒm ˈboʊltən/ according to the English guidelines. (There is no transcription, of course, because it’s a common English name.) Or Jan Böhmermann’s name is [jan ˈbøːmɐˌman] rather than [jam ˈbøː-], although a certain degree of assimilation/coarticulation is present in English and German as well. Changing/clarifying the Dutch guidelines would make sure that they fall in line with the guidelines of related languages. Isoglosse (talk) 11:51, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Let me briefly summarise and suggest next steps:

• There seems to be agreement on the fact that transcriptions must not reflect optional phonological processes in phrases (e.g., names). I would suggest to stop transcribing assimilation in names altogether and add a paragraph about this in the guidelines.
  • Here are some examples of how transcriptions would change:
    • Nasals
      • Jan Blokhuijsen: [ˈjɑm ˈblɔkˌɦœyzə(n)] → [ˈjɑn ˈblɔkˌɦœyzə(n)]
      • Henk Krol: [ˈɦɛŋ ˈkrɔl] → [ˈɦɛŋk ˈkrɔl]
      • Martin van Marum: [ˈmɑrtɪɱ vɑ ˈmaːrʏm] → [ˈmɑrtɪn vɑn ˈmaːrʏm]
      • Arnon Yasha Yves Grünberg: [ˈɑrnɔ ˈɲɑɕaː ˈiːf ˈxrʏmbɛr(ə)x] → [ˈɑrnɔn ˈjɑɕaː ˈiːf ˈxrʏmbɛr(ə)x]
    • Stops and fricatives
      • Hans de Koning: [ˈɦɑnz də ˈkoːnɪŋ] → [ˈɦɑns də ˈkoːnɪŋ]
      • Frits Zernike: [ˈfrɪt ˈsɛrnikə] → [ˈfrɪts ˈzɛrnikə]
      • Coenraad Jacob Temminck: [ˈkunraː ˈtɕaːkɔp ˈtɛmɪŋk] → [ˈkunraːt ˈjaːkɔp ˈtɛmɪŋk]
      • Marius Job Cohen: [ˈmaːrijə ˈɕɔp koːˈɦɛn] → [ˈmaːrijəs ˈjɔp koːˈɦɛn]
  • I would be willing to keep assimilation of van [vɑn] to preceding voiceless sounds, e.g. Chris van der Klaauw: [ˈkrɪs fɑn dər ˈklʌu]. This would also greatly reduce the number of transcriptions that have to be changed. (I would, however, advise against footnotes that say “In isolation, van is pronounced [vɑn].” I don’t think anybody needs that.)
  • We could consider focusing on names first and leave sentences like Ik zou je het liefste in een doosje willen doen out of this.
• There is less agreement on how to transcribe word-internal assimilation, especially when it leads to potential gemination (e.g., Afsluitdijk). I would suggest to leave this topic alone and keep the transcriptions as they are (until there is more evidence).

Would you agree with that, @Exarchus, @Esperfulmo, @IvanScrooge98 and others? Isoglosse (talk) 17:00, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I’m not convinced we should treat voicing/devoicing in two different ways as you seem to be suggesting, and I’m more inclined to keep all instances of assimilation ([ˈɦɑnz də ˈkoːnɪŋ] etc.). I would also tend to keep all internal assimilations, keeping in mind there’s normally never a pause mid-word; optional geminations resulting from that could be marked as [ˈɑfslœy(d)dɛik] (after all, /ən/ is already marked as [ə(n)], [ə(ɱ)] and so on). I’m fine with dropping non-voice assimilations across word boundary. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 17:22, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

That sounds ok, but I'm inclined to think that you might want to keep [fɑn] because that simply is the most common pronunciation of 'van' in the Netherlands. Exarchus (talk) 17:24, 28 November 2024 (UTC)