Dutch Orthography Research Articles

Picardisch in het Vlaams/Nederlands

This paper traces the evolution and integration of Picardian elements into Flemish, showing how many modern Flemish words and family names originate from Picardian forms, not standard French. Picardian influence on Middle Dutch orthography and phonology can be traced in Middle Dutch spellings form Flanders, with examples such as plache (D. plaats, ‘place’) and family names like Franchois from François. Additionally, the article highlights how Picardian preserved the Latin plosive k that evolved into a fricative ch in some other French dialects and later standard French, as seen in canter (Fr. chanter, ‘to sing’) and capiau (Fr. chapeau, ‘hat’). Also, some regional pronunciation variations, such as 'Pierre' evolving to 'Pire', are explained. Overall, the analysis suggests that many words traditionally attributed to French are more accurately derived from Picardian, emphasizing the profound linguistic interconnections between Flemish and Picardian dialects.

Zur Diachronie der satzinternen Großschreibung im Niederländischen

Abstract On the history of sentence-internal capitalisation in Dutch – a corpus-based study on genre influence on the capitalisation practice Though sentence-internal capitalisation of nouns is – unlike in German – no hallmark of Modern Dutch orthography at all, initial studies on Early Modern Dutch writing practice have affirmed Maas’ (1995, 2007) claim that Dutch once exhibited at least a moderate tendency to uppercase nouns in sentence-internal position (cf. & 2020a): Since both studies were restricted on a corpus of bible prints, it remains an open question whether the capitalisation practice was restricted to this text type only. Therefore, the present paper aims at analysing the use of majuscules in other texts types to gain a more conclusive picture on the overall phenomenon. The contrastive analysis of bible prints with printed travel reports and sailing letters (1500-1800) confirms – on the one hand – previous findings, mainly the fact that the use of majuscules within common nouns was increasingly motivated by cognitive factors, mainly animacy and concreteness of the referent; on the other hand, however, the present study shows that sentence-internal capitalisation of common nouns was much more pronounced in non-biblical texts than expected by previous studies (cf. & 2020a). In contrast to bible prints, non-biblical texts did not abolish sentence-internal uppercase letters by the end of the 17th century, suggesting that this spelling convention was not abandoned due to religious reasons as suggested by & 2007).

Paul Jen-kuei Li. 2019. Text analysis of Favorlang . Language and Linguistics Monograph Series 61. Taipei: Academia Sinica. 334 pp. ISBN 978-986-05-8008-2 $35, paperback.

Book Review Paul Jen-kuei Li. 2019. Text analysis of Favorlang. Language and Linguistics Monograph Series 61. Taipei: Academia Sinica. v 334 pp. ISBN 978-986-05-8008-2 $35, paperback. The monograph under review, Text analysis of Favorlang, by Paul Jen-kuei Li is an important grammatical description of Favorlang, an extinct Formosan language. The monograph elaborates 19 texts, 271 pages long, for the analysis of the Favorlang language. The monograph consists of an introduction (including 9 sections), 14 short catechistic texts, and 5 longer sermons. I will first pay special attention to reviewing the introduction, consisting of a general background of the Favorlang language, the nature of the written documents, the problems of Dutch orthography , the linguistic position of Favorlang, and, more attentively, the language description of Favorlang. The language description is composed of phonology, morphology, and syntax. Next, I will provide comments on the text analysis and add some observations based on the texts that are not mentioned or discussed in the monograph. These additional observations will help readers have a better understanding of the Favorlang language. The introduction consists of nine sections: (1) general background, (2) Favorlang written documents, (3) the linguistic position of Favorlang, (4) Favorlang orthography and its phonetic interpretations, (5) historical phonology , (6) morphology, (7) syntax, (8) miscellaneous problems, and (9) work on Favorlang texts. The first section of the introduction addresses Favorlang’s status as a language ; it was at one time spoken in the central-western plain of Taiwan, but the last known native speaker passed away at the end of the nineteenth century, and the language is now dormant. There is little language material documented for Favorlang and other closely related Western Plains languages, Taokas, Babuza, Papora, and Hoanya. The 14 short catechistic texts and 5 longer sermons with interlinear glosses and translations are the most significant data for text analysis of Favorlang and allow for a better understanding of the now-dormant Favorlang language. The second section introduces written documents of Favorlang. During the Dutch period (1624–1662), the only two Formosan languages that were documented were Siraya and Favorlang. The remaining written documents of Favorlang include (1) a Favorlang vocabulary by Gilbertus Happart (1650) and (2) prayers, catechisms on Christianity, and sermons by Jacobus Vertrecht (1888). The third section focuses on the linguistic position of Favorlang. Ogawa (1930) hypothesized that Favorlang was closely related to Babuza, by comparing wordlists of these two languages. Favorlang and Babuza share some Oceanic Linguistics, Volume 59, no. 1/2 (June/December 2020)© by University of Hawai‘i Press. All rights reserved. phonological innovations that have not been unearthed in most Formosan languages. The fourth section discusses orthography and phonetic interpretations of Favorlang. Li describes the orthography in the documents as inconsistent. Different forms are used for the same lexical items, for example, macha ∼ magcha ‘eye’ and imoch ∼ imogh ‘weeds’. He also mentions that no clear distinction can be made on free variations of voiced and voiceless obstruents (e.g., parras ∼ barras ‘to let go’ and takal ∼ dakal ‘to put on a woman’s head-band’), free variations of affricates and fricatives (e.g., bottos ‘cat’, bottots o adda ‘a musk cat’), and free variations of ch ∼ gh ∼ gch ∼ g (e.g., chach ∼ chagh ‘powder of a ground seed’, borroch ∼ borrog ‘a bump’, and bigh ∼ big ‘scabby’). Note that in the Dutch orthography, ch ∼ gh ∼ gch ∼ g all indicate the velar fricative [x] (p. 6). For more discussion on phonology and orthography, readers are referred to Li (forthcoming), to appear in ‘Favorlang’, in Handbook on Formosan languages, ed. by Paul J.-K. Li, Elizabeth Zeitoun, and Rik De Busser. Six sound changes that have taken place in Favorlang are mentioned in the fifth section. Taokas, Babuza, Papora, Hoanya, and Thao, five Western Plain languages , exclusively share the sound changes (a–d) and (f). These are (a) merger of *n and *ŋ as n; (b) partial merger of *t, *s, and *Z as t; (c) merger of *N and *S1 as s; (d) complete loss of *k, *q, and *H; (e) partial loss of *R, *j, including loss of final *-y and *-w; and (f) *s (in initial and medial positions) > t (p. 10). The...

Universal and language-specific predictors of early word reading in a foreign language: An analysis of the skills that underlie reading acquisition in three different orthographies.

A central question in the field of foreign language acquisition is whether the processes involved in reading development in a foreign language are universal or dependent on characteristics of the specific language involved. We investigated the impact of orthographic depth and writing system on word reading acquisition in a foreign orthography, by studying children who are proficient readers in the transparent alphabetic Dutch orthography and who learn to read simultaneously in the transparent alphabetic Spanish orthography, the nontransparent alphabetic French orthography and the nonalphabetic Chinese orthography. Results showed that the skills that underlie foreign language word reading are not universal, but are different for alphabetic and nonalphabetic orthographies, and are also different for transparent and nontransparent alphabetic orthographies, albeit to a lesser extent. Word reading acquisition in transparent alphabetic Spanish depended mainly on reading skills in the native language. In contrast, in nontransparent alphabetic French and nonalphabetic Chinese, word reading was mainly influenced by cognitive skills: French word reading by phonological awareness and verbal intelligence, and Chinese word reading by verbal and nonverbal intelligence. Findings thus suggest that the processes underlying foreign language word reading acquisition are not universal but rather depend on the specific language involved. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

The BasisSpellingBank

Abstract The BasisSpellingBank is the first lexicon where the spellings and pronunciations of words are documented explicitly and separately for all relevant word parts. Unlike earlier descriptions of Dutch orthography in terms of rules and underlying forms, the BasisSpellingBank departs from the concept of storage and the way spelling is taught in schools. At its core are triplets of phoneme(s), grapheme(s), and the spelling category(s) which describe the correspondences between them. The triplet notation provides a detailed, exhaustive description of Dutch orthography. It is a formal system that could be used to describe other alphabetic writing systems as well. By integrating information about orthographic rules and lexical storage, the triplet notation more adequately describes the knowledge possessed by fluent users. The triplets unlock exact measures of both forward and backward consistency, which opens up detailed analyses of spelling performance. The database provides new insights into spelling education and spelling complexity.

Time course analyses of orthographic and phonological priming effects during word recognition in a transparent orthography

In opaque orthographies, the activation of orthographic and phonological codes follows distinct time courses during visual word recognition. However, it is unclear how orthography and phonology are accessed in more transparent orthographies. Therefore, we conducted time course analyses of masked priming effects in the transparent Dutch orthography. The first study used targets with small phonological differences between phonological and orthographic primes, which are typical in transparent orthographies. Results showed consistent orthographic priming effects, yet phonological priming effects were absent. The second study explicitly manipulated the strength of the phonological difference and revealed that both orthographic and phonological priming effects became identifiable when phonological differences were strong enough. This suggests that, similar to opaque orthographies, strong phonological differences are a prerequisite to separate orthographic and phonological priming effects in transparent orthographies. Orthographic and phonological priming appeared to follow distinct time courses, with orthographic codes being quickly translated into phonological codes and phonology dominating the remainder of the lexical access phase.

Intersystemic Correspondence Rules and Headwords in Dutch Dialect Lexicography

The headwords in the three regional dialect dictionaries of the southern Dutch dialect area-the Dictionary of the Flemish Dialects (WVD), the Dictionary of the Brabantic Dialects (WBD) and the Dictionary of the Limburgish Dialects (WLD)-are 'Dutchified' forms: that is, headwords are rendered in Standard Dutch orthography and generalize across a number of phonologically distinct dialect forms. This article explains how the Dutchification of headwords was operationalized in the Dictionary of the Flemish Dialects. It is shown that a number of so-called correspondence rules can be found that mediate between dialect and Standard Dutch phonology and which form the basis of Dutchification. Phonological models confirm this lexicographical intuition; the work of Rys (2007) is used to exemplify the correspondence rules with examples from the Maldegem dialect.

The Recent History of Dutch Orthography (II)

The Recent History of Dutch Orthography (II)

Learnability of graphotactic rules in visual word identification

Besides phonotactic principles, orthographies entail graphotactic rules for which the reader must convert a phonological representation on the basis of spelling adaptation rules. In the present study, the learnability of such rules will be investigated with reference to Dutch. Although Dutch orthography can be considered highly regular, there are graphotactic rules that change letter sequences in plural noun formation. In a lexical decision experiment, the acquisition and use of such rules were examined. Participants were groups of 31 children from Grade 3 and 34 children from Grade 6, and 25 adults. The results showed that both children and adults are significantly less accurate and slower in recognizing plural word forms which undergo vowel change as a consequence of pluralization. It is concluded that graphotactic rules in Dutch orthography complicate Dutch word identification from an early stage of development and continue to play a complicating role in the word identification process of adult readers. In the discussion it is shown that current models fail to fully explain the processing of graphotactic rules in visual word identification.

Prefix identification in the reading of Dutch bisyllabic words

Two experiments were conducted in order to explore the role of prefix identification in the reading of Dutch bisyllabic words. Although Dutch orthography is highly regular, several deviations from a one-to-one correspondence exist. A case in point is the grapheme E which can represent the vowels e, e and œ in polysyllabic words. In Experiment 1, 33 third-grade children and 46 sixth-grade children were presented a list of randomly ordered bisyllabic words starting with the letter string BE and the first syllable being (1) a real prefix, (2) a phonological prefix (same sound pattern as a prefix), or (3) a pseudoprefix (sound pattern deviant from a prefix). Pseudowords starting with the same letter string were also presented. The results showed that words starting with a real or a phonological prefix were identified more accurately than words starting with a pseudoprefix. For the pseudowords, a predominant interpretation of the first part as a prefix was also evidenced. In Experiment 2, a lexical decision task was administered to 35 third-grade children, 33 sixth-grade children, and 26 adults. Words with a phonological prefix and words with a pseudoprefix were randomly presented along with other word types. The data showed both children and adults to retrieve words with phonological prefixes more quickly and more accurately than words with a pseudoprefix. The results are discussed with reference to current models of word decoding.

Development of rule-based verb spelling in Dutch students

Although verb spelling is rule-based, it is a relatively difficult aspect of Dutch orthography. Assink (1985) was the first to show that Dutch verb spelling is affected by two factors, namely, frequency of occurrence of the verb and the context in which the verb appears. This study is a developmental follow-up on his work, in which students of two age groups and three different levels of education, that is, students from primary school, secondary school, and university students, participated. It appeared that frequency and context already affect spelling behavior in the early stages of learning to spell. These aspects are still prominent determinants in the group of most experienced and good spellers, albeit the relative contribution of each of the determining factors changed over time. The interpretation of these findings was that verb-spelling performance in Dutch is not just the result of its inherent difficulty, it is also affected by the fact that it requires continuous active monitoring of the spelling process, while being involved in a main literacy activity.

Standardization: Studies From the Germanic Languages (review)

Reviewed by: Standardization: Studies from the Germanic languages ed. by Andrew R. Linn, Nicola McLelland K. Aaron Smith Standardization: Studies from the Germanic languages. Ed. by Andrew R. Linn and Nicola McLelland. (Current issues in linguistic theory 235.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002. Pp. 248. ISBN 1588113663. $107 (Hb). Following the introduction by Nicola McClelland and Andrew R. Linn to Standardization: Studies from the Germanic languages, the fourteen articles are divided into three sections. In the first section, ‘Diffusing and shaping the standard’, Ana Deumert (‘Standardization and social networks: The emergence and diffusion of standard Afrikaans’) shows that the traditional focus on strong ties in social network theory is insufficient for an account of standardization of Afrikaans. Wim Vandenbussche (‘Dutch orthography in lower, middle and upper class documents in 19th-century Flanders’) concludes that standardization debates had little effect on nineteenth-century writers of Dutch for whom, instead, there was a slow process of standardization with a top-down diffusion pattern. Stefan Elspaß (‘Standard German in the 19th century? (Counter-) evidence from the private correspondence of “ordinary people” ’) discusses variation in three grammatical features reported to have been standardized by the late eighteenth/early nineteenth centuries. Elspaß shows that this was hardly the case and argues that the variation was partly reinforced by elementary school teachers who were unsure about their own command of the standard. Nils Langer (‘On the importance of foreign language grammars for a history of standard German’) makes the case that information from foreign language grammars can provide insight in drawing up the history of languages which he exemplifies with auxiliary tun and polynegation in German. In the final paper in this section (‘Norms and standards in 16th century Swedish orthography’), Alexander Y. Zheltukhin argues that despite spelling variation in the sixteenth century in Sweden, a set of norms was firmly established in religious writings of the time. The next collection of papers comes under a section titled ‘Standard and identity’ and begins with a paper by Luc de Grauwe (‘Emerging mother-tongue awareness: The special case of Dutch and German in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period’) discussing the growing separation of identities among speakers of varieties of Germanic. The next article by Jetje de Groof (‘Two hundred years of language planning in Belgium’) presents the history of language planning activities in Belgium as a means of understanding the present-day language situation. Kendra Willson (‘Political inflections: Grammar and the Icelandic surname debate’) discusses arguments concerning the adoption of a European-like system of surnames in place of the traditional patronymic system in Iceland. In the final paper of this section (‘Standardization, language change, resistance and the question of linguistic threat: 18th-century English and present-day German’), Peter Hohenhaus shows that concerns about the linguistic threat of Anglicization in German are not founded. The final section of the book, ‘Non-standardization, de-standardization and re-standardization’, begins with an article by Gerald Newton summarizing ‘The standardization of Luxembourgish’. Arthur O. [End Page 537] Sandved (‘Language planning in Norway: A bold experiment with unexpected results’) shows that despite more than one hundred years of language planning in Norway, three standard varieties have emerged, and Anthonia Feitsma (‘ “Democratic” and “elitist” trends and a Frisian standard’) argues that because speakers have not aspired to a Dutch norm, but have instead established a unique linguistic identity, the standardization of Frisian contains a strong vernacular element. Ane Kleine (‘Yiddish: No state, no status—no standard?’) gives an account of the rather remarkable standardization of Yiddish despite the lack of a political center. Finally, Marko Modiano (‘Standardization processes and the mid-Atlantic English paradigm’) discusses the emergence of a standard second language variety of English used among Europeans, which, in contradistinction to the historical prominence of British English in Europe, incorporates forms from several other Englishes. K. Aaron Smith Illinois State University Copyright © 2005 Linguistic Society of America

Orthographic constraints and frequency effects in complex word identification

In an experimental study we explored the role of word frequency and orthographic constraints in the reading of Dutch bisyllabic words. Although Dutch orthography is highly regular, several deviations from a one-to-one correspondence occur. In polysyllabic words, the grapheme E may represent three different vowels: /ε /, /e/, or /œ /. In the experiment, skilled adult readers were presented lists of bisyllabic words containing the vowel E in the initial syllable and the same grapheme or another vowel in the second syllable. We expected word frequency to be related to word latency scores. On the basis of general word frequency data, we also expected the interpretation of the initial syllable as a stressed /e/ to be facilitated as compared to the interpretation of an unstressed /œ /. We found a strong negative correlation between word frequency and latency scores. Moreover, for words with E in either syllable we found a preference for a stressed /e/ interpretation, indicating a lexical frequency effect. The results are discussed with reference to a parallel dual-route model of word decoding.

Units of Analysis in Reading Dutch Bisyllabic Pseudowords

Two experiments were carried out to explore the units of analysis used by children to read Dutch bisyllabic pseudowords. Although Dutch orthography is highly regular, several deviations from a one-to-one correspondence occur. In polysyllabic words, the grapheme e may represent three different vowels: /e/, /e/, or /∂/. In Experiment 1, Grade 6 elementary school children were presented lists of bisyllabic pseudowords containing the grapheme e in the initial syllable representing a content morpheme, a prefix, or a random string. On the basis of general word frequency data, we expected the interpretation of the initial syllable as a random string to elicit the pronunciation of a stressed /e/, the interpretation of the initial syllable as a content morpheme to elicit the pronunciation of a stressed /ε/, and the interpretation as a prefix to elicit the pronunciation of an unstressed /∂/. We found both the pronunciation and the stress assignment for pseudowords to depend on word type, which shows morpheme boundaries and prefixes to be identified. However, the identification of prefixes could also be explained by the correspondence of the prefix boundaries in the pseudowords to syllable boundaries. To exclude this alternative explanation, a follow-up experiment with the same group of children was conducted using bisyllabic pseudowords containing prefixes that did not coincide with syllable boundaries versus similar pseudowords with no prefix. The results of the first experiment were replicated. That is, the children identified prefixes and shifted their assignment of word stress accordingly. The results are discussed with reference to a parallel dual-route model of word decoding.

Dutch Orthography: A systematic investigation of the spelling of Dutch words (review)

Dutch Orthography: A systematic investigation of the spelling of Dutch words (review)

Linguistics in the Netherlands 1996

1. Preface (by Cremers, Crit) 2. List of Contributors 3. Constructions of inalienable possession: The role of inflectional morphology (by Baauw, Sergio) 4. Associative DPs (by Besten, Hans den) 5. On Heads and the Linear Correspondence Axiom (by Broekhuis, Hans) 6. Inalienable possession in locational constructions: An apparent problem (by Broekhuis, Hans) 7. The spread of the reflexive adjunct middle in the Limburg dialects: 1885-1994 (by Cornips, Leonie M.E.A.) 8. Ternary rhythm in Sentani (by Elenbaas, Nine) 9. The history of thought about language and thought (by Elffers-van Ketel, Els) 10. A dynamic binding approach to intervention effects on negative polarity item licensing (by Honcoop, Martin) 11. How greedy is the French imperative? (by Hulk, Aafke) 12. Reduplication in Leti (by Hulst, Harry van der) 13. Agreement in Quechua: Evidence against Distributed Morphology (by Kerke, Simon van de) 14. Boundary tones and the semantics of the Dutch final particles he, hoor, zeg and joh (by Kirsner, Robert S.) 15. Metrical complexity (by Kooij, Jan G.) 16. Lexical stress and spoken word recognition: Dutch vs. English (by Leyden, Klaske van) 17. On the rise and fall of Spanish diphthongs (by Mauder, Elisabeth) 18. Constraint interaction in binding and the feature specification of anaphoric forms (by Menuzzi, Sergio) 19. Dutch orthography: A near-optimal phonological transcription? (by Nunn, Anneke) 20. The nature of quantification of high-degree: 'very', 'many', and the exclamative (by Postma, Gertjan) 21. Free indirect discourse in newspaper reports (by Redeker, Gisela) 22. Cohesion analysis and information flow: The case of 'Because' versus 'because' (by Renkema, Jan) 23. Emphasis spread in two dialects of Palestinian (by Vijver, Ruben van de) 24. Object drop in Dutch imperatives (by Visser, Janneke)

Alliance and Betrayal in the Dutch Orthography Debate

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Einheit und Zwietracht in der niederländischen Rechtschreibungsdebatte 1989 setzten die Regierungen der Niederlande und Belgiens einen geheimen LinguistenausschuB ein, der die Aufgabe erhielt, das inkonsistente Rechtschreibsystem der niederlandischen Sprache zu vereinheitlichen. 1994 lehnten den Minister die Vorschläge des Ausschusses vor dem Hinter-grund einer hitzigen offentlichen Debatte über die Rechtschreibreform ab. Die Untersuchung beschreibt den Umschwung von absichtlicher Geheimhaltung, die die Diskussion auf eine "bloße" akademische Debatte begrenzen sollte, zu einer emontionalen öffentlichen Kontroverse. Der Beitrag untersucht, wie es dazu kam, daß der Kampf um Rechtschreibungsfragen gar nicht so sehr eine Diskussion über zweckmäßige Änderungen der Rechtschreibung war, sondern sich vor allem um die Fragen drehte, wie legitime Rechtschreibreformen festgelegt zu werden hätten und wer hierfür verantwortlich sei. Es war daher nicht nur eine Sachdiskussion, sondern ebenso ein soziopolitisches Ereignis. Die Untersuchung ist von Callon und Latours Soziologie der Über-setzung inspiriert. RESUMO Unueco kaj kverelo en la nederlanda ortografia debato En 1989 la registaroj de Nederlando kaj Belgio installs sekretan komisionon de lingvistoj kun la tasko unuecigi la malkoheran ortografian sistemon de la nederlanda lingvo. En 1994 la ministroj malaprobis la proponojn de la komisiono meze de vigla publika debato pri problemoj de literumado. La studo priskribas la turnigon de intenca sekreteco, kiu devis limigi la diskuton al "nura" akademia debato, al emocia publika kverelo. La artikolo esploras, kiel la batalo pri ortografio montriĝis esti ne tiom debato pri utilaj sangoj de literumo, kiom problemo pri kiel atingi legitimitajn ortografiajn reformojn kaj kiu respondecu pri ili. Temis do ne nur pri argumenta batalo, sed ne malpli pri socipolitika evento. La studo estas inspirita de la traduka sociologio de Callon kaj Latour.

Dutch orthography

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Cant a Sen Vargonya

This study analyzes the oral traditions of Sri Lanka Creole Portuguese as a syncretism of European, African, and Asian sources, evidenced in literary themes, linguistic practice, and cultural traditions. Resulting musical, dramatic, and textual practices play a central role in defining tradition and maintaining group identity in the creole communities. Both the co-existence and the interrelationship of oral texts establish traditions which contribute to a system of creole culture that spread throughout Asia. References are primarily to Sri Lankan and Indian materials collected by scholars in the late nineteenth century and during my field work in the 1970s and 1980s. Sri Lankan verses refer to the east coast Burghers of Bat-ticaloa and Trincomalee and to the Kaffirs of Puttalam. This study also presents for the first time a unique source for data and comparative analysis from the H. Nevill collection at the British Library, which is an extensive manuscript of Sri Lankan Creole texts from the 1870s or 1880s written in Dutch orthography and including material subsequently published by Schuchardt, Dalgado, and others. The theoretical focus concerns the translation of European, African, and Asian materials into a Eurasian discourse that displaces the originals, creating a new textual system of Portuguese Creole oral materials in Asia. The texts that give definition to creole culture have proved remarkably persistent, surviving in Sri Lanka from the seventeenth century to the present.

De Rol Van Toonhoogtekontoeren Bij Het Segmenteren Van Spraak Door Luisteraars.Een Contrastieve Studie Frans-Nederlands

A comparison was made between French and Dutch pitch contours at the level of the word and the prosodic word. The overlap between the two systems was supposed to cause problems in the segmentation of words in speech communication for French dominant and Dutch dominant French-Dutch bilinguals. Two types of experiments were reported. In the first type native speakers of French (French dominant French-Dutch bilinguals) read Dutch sentences. These sentences are ambiguous without orthographic or intonational specification. The resulting French coloured realisations were interpreted by native speakers of Dutch in a way which differed from the interpretation suggested by Dutch orthography. In a second type of experiment pitch contours were manipulated by means of a resynthesis program. The same kind of sentences as in the first experiment were read by native speakers of French (French dominant French-Dutch bilinguals). On the sentences produced by these speakers a Dutch pitch contour was superimposed. This contour corresponded to the orthographic form in which the sentence had been presented to the native speakers of French. Other prosodie or segmental parameters were left unmodified. The resulting sentences were presented to native speakers of Dutch. The results showed that these native speakers of Dutch interpreted these manipulated sentences according to the orthography of the original Dutch stimulus. To control for the influence of other prosodie or segmental features of French in the realisation of the Dutch sentences by the French speakers, a number of Dutch sentences of the same kind as in the previous experiments were read by native speakers of Dutch. Their realisations were provided with a pitch contour corresponding to the contours the French speakers had realised on the same type of sentences. The effect of the pitch modification on the interpretation of these sentences by native speakers of Dutch was the same as the effect of having French dominant bilinguals read the original Dutch sentences.