The Morphological Atlas of the Dutch Dialects [MAND]; Zero and Preserved Morphological Information

This article gives a short survey of the content of the Morphological Atlas of the Dutch Dialects Volume I & of the two transcription systems that may be used to query the database which supplied the data for this dialect atlas. Some issues from Volume I are elaborated upon. The first one illustrates the possibilities to embark on the investigation of linguistic change in real time. The case concerns changes in diminutive formation in the province of Groningen. The second one illustrates the fact that fine phonetic detail in transcriptions is indicative of losses of affixes in segmental terms nevertheless retaining the original morphological information on the level of phonetic or phonological features, now occurring elsewhere in the word form. This holds for schwa-apocope & its remnants; for assimilation cum deletion; also for some cases of non-assimilation in nouns (singular & plural) & gender forms of adjectives & their plural forms; & also for tonal alternations in these forms. As a third issue, I will show that the atlas, combined with further queries for additional information in the database, leads to a thorough reading of existing literature with a sharpened attention for those specific features. This leads to broader insights, & points to the conclusion that these finely graded phonetic details are best represented in a theory like Optimality Theory, as instances of the constraint FAITHFULNESS (like RealizeMorpheme). A strictly phonemic account will fall short of the phenomena. As a byproduct we will see that a direct influence of the standard language is often less probable than influence from immediately neighboring dialects. Tables, References. Adapted from the source document