Foot Structure and Word Stress in Middle Dutch

Abstract

Whereas word stress in modern Dutch is subject to continuous debate (cf. Kager 1989, Trommelen and Zonneveld 1989, Booij 1995), word stress in the older stages of the language is seldom discussed. One of the few exceptions is Zonneveld's (1992, 1993a) investigation of word stress in the Middle Dutch (MNL) text 'Het Leven van Sinte Lutgart' [Saint Lutgart's Life]. Zonneveld's work points out several interesting issues. His main conclusions are, however, challenged in this paper. Zonneveld's first conclusion is that not much has changed in the last 700 years with respect to word stress and that the stress system in 'Lutgart' is very similar to that of modern Dutch. In this paper I argue that the prosodic system of 'Lutgart' resembles that of the old and middle stages of the other West Germanic (WGmc) languages. It still has a Germanic foot, and moreover, Open Syllable Lengthening (OSL) has not yet run its full course. This latter claim challenges the assumption of all MNL grammars, namely that OSL took place in Old Dutch (ONL) and was a fact in MNL. The only evidence given for this assumption comes from rhyme. However, rhyme in 'Lutgart' does not motivate this assumption. Zonneveld's second conclusion is that the prosodic variation found in 'Lutgart' is largely due to the status of the schwa as a stress attractor. This confirms his synchronic analysis of modern Dutch, which also assumes the stress attracting nature of schwa (Trommelen and Zonneveld 1989, Kager and Zonneveld 1986). I will argue that the variation is not due to the nature of schwa per se, but is due to prosodic preferences at play at the time of 'Lutgart'. Variation is found only in certain environments, which partly coincide with those where English showed Trisyllabic Shortening (TSS) (Lahiri and Fikkert, 1996). Dutch did not have TSS but chose another way of dealing with less favoured prosodic structures, as we will see below.