Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect phonology

Not to be confused with Orsmaal-Gussenhoven Dutch or an Orsmaal-Gussenhoven accent, the accent/regional variety of Standard Dutch spoken in Orsmaal-Gussenhoven.

Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect
Native to	Belgium
Region	Linter
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Istvaeonic Low Franconian Dutch Brabantian dialect Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None

The Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect is a subdialect of Brabantian spoken in Orsmaal-Gussenhoven, a village in the Linter municipality.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

		Labial	Alveolar		Postalveolar	Dorsal		Glottal
			hard	soft		hard	soft
Nasal		m	n			ŋ
Stop	voiceless	p	t	tʲ		k	kʲ
	voiced	b	d
Fricative	voiceless	f	s		ʃ	x		h
	voiced	v	z		ʒ	ɣ
Approximant		β	l				j
Trill			r

Obstruents

• /p, b/ are bilabial, whereas /f, v/ are labiodental.
• /ʒ/ is restricted to word-initial position, and occurs only in loanwords from French. It tends to either devoice to [ʃ] or be affricated to [d͡ʒ].
• /k, kʲ/ are velar.
• The exact place of articulation of /x, ɣ/ varies:
  • Velar [x, ɣ] before and after back vowels and, in the case of /x/, also when it is preceded by a back vowel in an intervocalic position between stressed and unstressed syllable.
  • Palatal [ç, ʝ] before and after front vowels and, in the case of /x/, also after /ə/.
• Word-initial /x/ is restricted to the sequence /sx/.
• /h/ may be dropped by some speakers.
• /p, t, tʲ, k, kʲ, v, z/ may be affricated to [p͡ɸ, t͡s, t͡sʲ, k͡x, k͡xʲ, b͡v, d͡z]. Peters (2010) does not specify the environment(s) in which the affrication of /v/ and /z/ takes place. In the case of stops, it occurs in pre-pausal position.
• /v, z/ are realized as voiceless [v̥, z̥] when they occur between vowels, and often also in word-initial position (in which the devoicing may be only partial). /ɣ/ is devoiced in a similar manner.

Sonorants

• /m, β/ are bilabial.
• /n, l, r/ are alveolar.
  • /n/ before /k/ is pronounced as follows:
    • [n], if /k/ belongs to another morpheme ([nʲ] before allomorphemic /kj/);
    • [ŋ], if /k/ belongs to the same morpheme.
  • Word-final [nʲ] appears only in loanwords from French.
  • /l/ tends to be velarized, especially postvocalically.
  • /r/ has a few possible realizations:
    • Apical trill [r] or an apical fricative [ɹ̝] before a stressed vowel in word-initial syllables.
    • Intervocalically and in the onset after a consonant, it may be a tap [ɾ].
    • Word-final /r/ is highly variable; the most frequent variants are an apical fricative trill [r̝], an apical fricative [ɹ̝] and an apical rhotic affricate [ɾ͡ɹ̝]. The last two variants tend to be voiceless ([ɹ̝̊, ɾ̥͡θ̠]) in pre-pausal position.
    • The sequence /ər/ can be vocalized to [ɐ] or [ə].
• /ŋ/ is velar, whereas /j/ is palatal.
• /β, j/ appear only word-initially and intervocalically.

Final devoicing and assimilation

Just like Standard Dutch, Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect devoices all obstruents at the ends of words.

Morpheme-final /p, t, k/ may be voiced if a voiced plosive or a vowel follows.

Vowels

Monophthongs of the Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect, from Peters (2010:241). /ɔː/ is not shown.

Part 1 of non-centering diphthongs of the Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect, from Peters (2010:241)

Part 2 of non-centering diphthongs of the Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect, from Peters (2010:241)

Centering diphthongs of the Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect, from Peters (2010:241)

The Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect contains 18 monophthong and 12 diphthong phonemes. A notable feature of it are quite unusual contrasts between /eː, øː/, /ei, øy/ and /ɛɪ, œʏ/.

Monophthong phonemes

	Front				Central	Back
	unrounded		rounded			unrounded		rounded
	short	long	short	long		short	long	short	long
Close		iː	(y)	yː	ə				uː
Close-mid	ɪ	eː	ʏ	øː				ʊ, (o)	oː
Open-mid	ɛ	ɛː	œ	œː				ɔ	ɔː
Open						a	aː	ɒ	ɒː

• The majority of the vowels (/iː, y, yː, uː, eː, øː, ə, o, oː, ɛː, œː/) are close to the canonical values of the corresponding IPA symbols.
  • /y/ and /o/ occur only in few loanwords from French.
• /yː, uː, ɒː/ before /t, d/ within the same syllable may be realized as centering diphthongs [yə, uə, ɒə], often with a labial glide before the schwa [ywə, uwə, ɒwə]. Alternatively, in place of the schwa an unrounded variant of the first vowel may appear: [yi, uɯ, ɒɑ]. In the same environment, /øː/ can be realized as [øjə].
• /ɪ, ʏ, ʊ/ are phonetically near-close. /ʏ/ is close to the canonical value of ⟨ʏ⟩, yet /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ are more peripheral ([ɪ̟, ʊ̠]) than the canonical values of ⟨ɪ, ʊ⟩.
• /ɛ, œ/ are closer ([ɛ̝, œ̝]) than the canonical values of ⟨ɛ, œ⟩.
• /ɔ, ɒ, ɒː/ are closer ([ɔ̝, ɒ̝, ɒ̝ː] than the canonical values of ⟨ɔ, ɒ⟩.
• /ɔː/ appears only before /t, d/ and only as a phonetic centering diphthong [ɔə].
• /a, aː/, which are phonological back vowels, are central [ä, äː] phonetically.
• When stressed, short vowels cannot occur in open syllables. Exceptions to this rule are high-frequency words like [βa] 'what', and loanwords from French, such as [dəˈpo] 'depot'.

Diphthong phonemes

Closing	uɪ ei øy ɛɪ œʏ əʊ ɞʊ aɪ aʊ
Centering	iə eə ɛə

• The quality of most diphthongs (/uɪ, ei, øy, ɛɪ, œʏ, əʊ, ɞʊ/) is close to the canonical values of the IPA symbols used to transcribe them.
• The starting points of /aɪ, aʊ/ are near-open central [ɐ]. The ending points are [ɪ] and [ʊ], close to the canonical values of the IPA symbols used to transcribe them.
• The starting points of the centering diphthongs /iə, eə, ɛə/ are close to the canonical values of the IPA symbols used to transcribe them ([i, e, ɛ]), whereas their ending points are not fully central but centralized front; [ë] in the case of /iə/, [ë̞] in the case of /eə, ɛə/.

Prosody

Stress location is largely the same as in Belgian Standard Dutch. In loanwords from French, the original word-final stress is often preserved, as in [kəˈdaʊ] 'cadeau'.

Sample

The sample text is a reading of the first sentence of The North Wind and the Sun. The orthographic version is written in Standard Dutch.

Phonetic transcription

[də ˈnœrdərβ̞ɪnt ʔɛn də zɔn ˈʔadən ən dɪsˈkøːsə ˈɛvə də vɾoːx | β̞i van ən tβ̞iː də ˈstɛɾəkstə β̞as | tʏn dʏɪ ʒyst ˈɛmant v̥œrˈbɛːkɔm bə nən ˈdɪkə ˈβ̞aɾəmə ja̰s a̰ːn]

Orthographic version

De noordenwind en de zon hadden een discussie over de vraag wie van hun tweeën de sterkste was, toen er juist iemand voorbij kwam met een dikke, warme jas aan.

Bibliography

• Peters, Jörg (2010), "The Flemish–Brabant dialect of Orsmaal–Gussenhoven", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 40 (2): 239–246, doi:10.1017/S0025100310000083