Plural doublets in Dutch.
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2023-07-04
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en
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We investigated if there is a preference for a particular plural form in the case of doublets in Dutch and, if so, by which factors this preference is influenced. Specifically, we investigated the factors region (i.e. the Netherlands and Flanders), sonority, rhythm, modality, and frequency. Data was drawn from the Corpus Gesproken Nederlands and the magazine ‘Knack’(Flanders) and the newspaper ‘NRC’(Netherlands). A logistic regression analysis (of the generalized linear mixed models type) in R was employed to analyze the data. A statistically significant influence was found for the factors region and rhythm, for sonority a statistically significant influence wasn’t found but it was included in the best fitting model, meaning that it must have a certain influence. The region variable showed that overall, Dutch-speakers from the Netherlands prefer the ‘-en’ plural suffix, while those from Flanders prefer the ‘-s’ plural suffix. This result was in contrast with Theissen’s (2004) finding that both regions are converging in this respect.
Keywords: Dutch, plural, doublet, rhythmic factor, sonority factor, Flanders
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