AFrequencyDictionaryofDutch

AFrequencyDictionaryofDutchisavaluabletoolforalllearnersofDutch,providingalistofthe5,000mostfrequentlyusedwordsinthelanguage.Basedona290-million-wordcorpuswhichincludesbothwrittenandspokenmaterialfromawiderangeofsources,thisdictionarypresentsDutchcorevocabularyinadetailedandclearlyarrangedmanner:eachofthe5,000entriesincludesEnglishequivalentsandasamplesentenceshowinglanguageinuse.Userscanaccessthetop5,000wordsthrougheitherthemainfrequencylistingsoran

alphabeticalindex.Throughoutthefrequencylistingstherearethematicallyorganizedlistsfeaturingthetopwordsfromavarietyofkeytopicssuchasanimals,foodandotherareasofdailyandculturallife.WordsspecifictoDutchinBelgium(BelgianDutch)arealsoincluded.Anengagingandefficientresource,AFrequencyDictionaryofDutchwillenablestudentsof

alllevelstogetthemostoutoftheirstudy.ThisbookwaspreparedinassociationwiththeInstituutvoorNederlandseLexicologie

(INL,InstituteofDutchLexicology).ACDversionisavailabletopurchaseseparately.Designedforusebycorpusand

computationallinguists,itprovidesthefulltextinaformatthatresearcherscanprocessandturnintosuitablelistsfortheirownresearchpurposes.

CaroleTiberiusisacomputationallinguistattheINL(InstituteofDutchLexicology).

TannekeSchoonheimisalinguistandlexicographerattheINL(InstituteofDutchLexicology).

RoutledgeFrequencyDictionaries

GeneralEditorsPaulRayson,LancasterUniversity,UKMarkDavies,BrighamYoungUniversity,USA

EditorialBoardMichaelBarlow,UniversityofAuckland,NewZealandGeoffreyLeech,LancasterUniversity,UKBarbaraLewandowska-Tomaszczyk,UniversityofLodz,PolandJosefSchmied,ChemnitzUniversityofTechnology,GermanyAndrewWilson,LancasterUniversity,UKAdamKilgarriffLexicographyMasterClassLtdandUniversityofSussex,UKHongyingTao,UniversityofCaliforniaatLosAngelesChrisTribble,KingsCollegeLondon,UK

OtherbooksintheseriesAFrequencyDictionaryofArabicAFrequencyDictionaryofContemporaryAmericanEnglishAFrequencyDictionaryofCzechAFrequencyDictionaryofFrenchAFrequencyDictionaryofGermanAFrequencyDictionaryofJapaneseAFrequencyDictionaryofMandarinChineseAFrequencyDictionaryofPortugueseAFrequencyDictionaryofRussianAFrequencyDictionaryofSpanish

AFrequencyDictionaryofDutch

Corevocabularyforlearners

CaroleTiberiusandTannekeSchoonheim

Firstpublished2014byRoutledge2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN

andbyRoutledge711ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10017

RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness

2014CaroleTiberiusandTannekeSchoonheimofINL

TherightofCaroleTiberiusandTannekeSchoonheim,bothofINL,tobeidentifiedasauthorsofthisworkhasbeenassertedbytheminaccordancewithsections77and78oftheCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988.

Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedorutilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,nowknownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orinanyinformationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublishers.

Trademarknotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksorregisteredtrademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanationwithoutintenttoinfringe.

BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationDataAcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary

LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationDataTiberius,Carole.AfrequencydictionaryofDutch:corevocabularyforlearners/CaroleTiberiusandTannekeSchoonheim.pagescm.Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.1.EnglishlanguageDictionariesDutch.2.DutchlanguageDictionariesEnglish.3.DutchlanguageSpokenDutch.I.Schoonheim,Tanneke.II.Title.PF640.T532014439.31321dc23

2013024187

ISBN:978-0-415-52379-0(hbk)ISBN:978-0-415-52380-6(pbk)ISBN:978-1-315-85748-0(ebk)ISBN:978-0-415-82051-6(CD)

Contents

Thematicvocabularylists

Seriespreface

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introduction

Frequencyindex

Core

Fiction

Newspapers

Spoken

Web

General

Alphabeticalindex

Part-of-speechindex

Thematicvocabularylists

1Animals

2Body

3Clothing

4Colours

5Emotions

6Familyandkinship

7Foodanddrink

8Materials

9Nationalitiesandplaceadjectives

10Numbers

11Professions

12Sport

13Time

14Transportation

15Weather

16Opposites

17ThevocabularyofDutchofBelgium

18Personalpronouns

19Possessivepronouns

20Formsoftheverbzijn

21Formsoftheverbhebben

22Formsoftheverbworden

Seriespreface

Frequencyinformationhasacentralroletoplayinlearningalanguage.Nation(1990)showedthatthe4,0005,000mostfrequentwordsaccountforupto95%ofawrittentextandthe1,000mostfrequentwordsaccountfor85%ofspeech.AlthoughNationsresultswereonlyforEnglish,theydoprovideclearevidencethat,whenemployingfrequencyasageneralguideforvocabularylearning,itispossibletoacquirealexiconwhichwillservealearnerwellmostofthetime.Therearetwocaveatstobearinmindhere.First,countingwordsisnotasstraightforwardasitmightseem.Gardner(2007)highlightstheproblemsthatmultiplewordmeanings,thepresenceofmultiworditems,andgroupingwordsintofamiliesorlemmas,haveoncountingandanalysingwords.Second,frequencydatacontainedinfrequencydictionariesshouldneveractastheonlyinformationsourcetoguidealearner.Frequencyinformationisnonethelessaverygoodstartingpoint,andonewhichmayproducerapidbenefits.Itthereforeseemsrationaltoprioritizelearningthewordsthatyouarelikelytohearandreadmostoften.Thatisthephilosophybehindthisseriesofdictionaries.Listsofwordsandtheirfrequencieshavelongbeenavailableforteachersandlearnersof

language.Forexample,Thorndike(1921,1932)andThorndikeandLorge(1944)producedword-frequencybookswithcountsofwordoccurrencesintextsusedintheeducationofAmericanchildren.MichaelWestsGeneralServiceListofEnglishWords(1953)wasprimarilyaimedatforeignlearnersofEnglish.Morerecently,withtheaidofefficientcomputersoftwareandverylargebodiesoflanguagedata(calledcorpora),researchershavebeenabletoprovidemoresophisticatedfrequencycountsfrombothwrittentextandtranscribedspeech.Oneimportantfeatureoftheresultingfrequenciespresentedinthisseriesisthattheyarederivedfromrecentlycollectedlanguagedata.TheearlierlistsforEnglishincludedsamplesfrom,forexample,AustensPrideandPrejudiceandDefoesRobinsonCrusoe,thustheycouldnolongerrepresentpresent-daylanguageinanysense.Frequencydataderivedfromalargerepresentativecorpusofalanguagebringsstudents

closertolanguageasitisusedinreallifeasopposedtotextbooklanguage(whichoftendistortsthefrequenciesoffeaturesinalanguage,seeLjung,1990).Theinformationinthesedictionariesispresentedinanumberofformatstoallowuserstoaccessthedataindifferentways.So,forexample,ifyouwouldprefernottosimplydrilldownthroughthewordfrequencylist,butwouldratherfocusonverbsforexample,thepartofspeechindexwillallowyoutofocusonjustthemostfrequentverbs.Giventhatverbstypicallyaccountfor20%ofallwordsinalanguage,thismaybeagoodstrategy.Also,afocusonfunctionwordsmaybeequallyrewarding60%ofspeechinEnglishiscomposedofamere50functionwords.Theseriesalsoprovidesinformationofusetothelanguageteacher.Theideathatfrequencyinformationmayhavearoletoplayinsyllabusdesignisnotnew(see,forexample,SinclairandRenouf1988).However,todateithasbeendifficultforthoseteachinglanguagesotherthanEnglishtousefrequencyinformationinsyllabusdesignbecauseofa

lackofdata.Frequencyinformationshouldnotbestudiedtotheexclusionofothercontextualand

situationalknowledgeaboutlanguageuseandwemayevendoubtthevalidityoffrequencyinformationderivedfromlargecorpora.ItisinterestingtonotethatAlderson(2007)foundthatcorpusfrequenciesmaynotmatchanativespeakersintuitionaboutestimatesofwordfrequencyandthatasetofestimatesofwordfrequenciescollectedfromlanguageexpertsvariedwidely.Thuscorpus-derivedfrequenciesarestillthebestcurrentestimateofawordsimportancethatalearnerwillcomeacross.Aroundthetimeoftheconstructionofthefirstmachine-readablecorpora,Halliday(1971:344)statedthataroughindicationoffrequenciesisoftenjustwhatisneeded.Ouraiminthisseriesistoprovideasaccurateaspossibleestimatesofwordfrequencies.

PaulRaysonandMarkDaviesLancasterandProvo,2008

ReferencesAlderson,J.C.(2008).JudgingthefrequencyofEnglishwords.AppliedLinguistics,28(3):383409.

Gardner,D.(2007).ValidatingtheconstructofWordinappliedcorpus-basedvocabularyresearch:acriticalsurvey.AppliedLinguistics,28:241265.

Halliday,M.A.K.(1971).Linguisticfunctionsandliterarystyle.InS.Chatman(ed.)Style:ASymposium.OxfordUniversityPress,pp.330365.

Ljung,M.(1990).AStudyofTEFLVocabulary.Almqvist&WiksellInternational,Stockholm.Nation,I.S.P.(1990).TeachingandLearningVocabulary.Heinle&Heinle,Boston.Sinclair,J.M.andRenouf,A.(1988).Alexicalsyllabusforlanguagelearning.InR.CarterandM.McCarthy(eds.)VocabularyandLanguageTeaching.Longman,London,pp.140158.

Thorndike,E.(1921).TeachersWordBook.ColumbiaTeachersCollege,NewYork.Thorndike,E.(1932).ATeachersWordBookof20,000Words.ColumbiaUniversityPress,NewYork.

Thorndike,E.andLorge,I.(1944).TheTeachersWordBookof30,000Words.ColumbiaUniversityPress,NewYork.

West,M.(1953).AGeneralServiceListofEnglishWords.Longman,London.

Acknowledgements

TheauthorswishtoexpresstheirgratitudetotheInstituutvoorNederlandseLexicologie(INL)inLeidenforitsgeneroussupportinthepreparationofthisbook.WearealsoextremelygratefultoAdamKilgarriffandhisSketchEngineteamfortheirhelpwiththeproject.

Abbreviations

Thefollowingabbreviationsareusedinthisdictionary:

adj Adjectiveadv Adverbart Articleconj Conjunctionf Feminineinterj Interjectionm Masculinenum Numberpl Pluralposs Possessiveprep Prepositionpron Pronoun

~ Translationnotacompleteequivalent

Introduction

ThevalueofthisdictionaryLanguagestudentswanttoknowtheexactmeaninganduseofthewordstheyencounter.Itisfrustratingnottoknowtherightwordsortomisusewordsinconversation.Thisissomethingeverylanguageuserwantstoavoid.ThisfrequencydictionaryofDutchaimstohelpanyonewhowantstoknowmoreabout

themostfrequentwordsintheDutchlanguage:whattheyare,whattheymeanandhowtheyareused.BoththewordsandtheexamplesentencesaretakenfromalargecorpusofcontemporaryDutch,andtheusercanbesurethatthedictionaryprovidescurrentinformationtobeusedintodaysDutchsocietywithoutproblems.Acentralquestionforaprojectlikethisiswhatkindsofmaterial,orgenres,dowe

includeinthecorpus?Withahighproportionofnewspapers,therewillbemanywordsfrompoliticsandeconomics;withahighproportionofpersonalblogs,therewillbemanyinformalwords.Whichisbetter?Italldepends:ifthereaderwantstoreadDutchnewspapers,thennewspapers,butiftheywanttochatwithDutchfriends,thentheblogs.Withthisinmind,wehavecountedwordsinfourgenresandthedictionarycontainsnotone,butsixlists:

Core:wordsoccurringwithhighfrequencyinallfourgenresFiction:high-frequencyfictionwordsNewspaper:high-frequencynewspaperwordsSpoken:high-frequencywordsinspokenDutchWeb:high-frequencywordsontheDutchwebGeneral:thenextbandofwordsthathavehighfrequenciesacrossatleastthreeofthegenres.

Throughoutthedictionary,thelanguageiscontemporary,spanningthepast40yearsandconcentratingonthelast20.

ContentsofthedictionaryThedictionarycontainsthe5,000topwordsofDutch,acrossthesixlists,asfollows:

(Somewordsoccurinmorethanoneofthefourgenrelists,sothesumishigherthan5,000.)Eachentrycontains:theheadword,itspartofspeech,anEnglishtranslationofthe

commonestsense,andanexamplesentenceshowinghowthewordisused.Inthemainliststhewordsaresortedbyfrequency.Inthecorelistandthegenerallistthis

sortingisdoneonthebasisoftheoverallfrequencyinallfourgenres.Inthegenre-specificlists,theorderingisbasedonthefrequencywithinthatgenre,ratherthantheoverallfrequency.Allwordsinthedictionary,regardlessofinwhichlisttheyoccur,specifythe

overallfrequencyattheendoftheirentry.Inadditiontothemainfrequencylists,thedictionaryalsocontains:

analphabeticallysortedindex.Thisletstheuserlookupawordtoseeifitisindeedinthedictionaryandhowcommonitis.

anindexofthecommonestwordsbypartofspeech.Thepartsofspeechare

nouns,verbs,adjectives,adverbs,prepositions,conjunctionsandinterjections

Inthecaseofnouns,verbs,adjectivesandadverbs,theselistscontainwordsfromthecorevocabularylistonly.Fortheotherpartsofspeechthelistsareexhaustive.Thewordsinthelistsareorderedbyfrequency.

listsofrelatedwords.Throughoutthebookthereareboxeswhichcontainsmallerlistsofthematicallyrelatedwords,e.g.body,foodanddrink,family,weather,professions,nationalities,colours,emotionsandseveralothersemanticdomains.Therearealsoboxescontaininggrammaticalinformation,e.g.paradigmsofauxiliaryverbs.Thewordsintheselistsareorderedbyfrequency.

Wordforms,lemmasandpartsofspeechLikeotherdictionaries,entriesareforlemmaslikehonddog,notwordformslikehondendogs.Wherealemmacouldbeofmorethanonepartofspeech,forexampleanounoraverb,andbothareinthetop5,000,eachgetsaseparateentry.Everyentryisforalemmaandpartofspeechcombination.Inthisdictionarywerefersimplytowordsratherthanlemmaandpartofspeechcombinations,whereveritdoesnotgiverisetoambiguity.

ThecorpusThebasisofthedictionaryisacorpusof290millionwordsofDutch,dividedbetweenthefourgenresasinTable1.ItistheresultofacombinationofexistingDutchcorpusmaterial.OurgenresincludethreeofthefourusedbyBiberandcolleaguesintheirground-breakingworkforEnglish(Biberetal.,1999).Theirfourthisacademic:thisisparticularlysalientforEnglishsincesomuchofacademicdiscourseproceedsinEnglish,butnotsosalientforDutch.Ourfourthisweb,inresponsetothegrowingimportanceoftheweb,andalsobecauseofitsheterogeneity.Itislesslikelythatweshallmisscommonwordsthatmainlyoccuringenresotherthanconversation,fictionandnewspapers.

Table1Numberofwordsinthedifferentlistsandsubcorpora

Fictioncomprisesatotalamountofaround900books,thatistosaymoreorless20booksperyear,fromFlemishandDutchauthors,publishedbetween1970and2009.Nomorethan

40,000wordsweretakenfromanyonebook.

NewspaperistakenfromtheSoNaR(StevinNederlandstaligReferentiecorpus)referencecorpusforcontemporarywrittenDutchandcomprisesmaterialfromBelgianandDutchnewspapersintheperiodfrom1993to2005.Itmakesupthelargestpartofourcorpus.

SpokenisfromtheSpokenDutchCorpus(CGNCorpusGesprokenNederlands).Thecorpuscontains900hours(ca.9millionwords)ofStandardDutchspokenbyFlemishandDutchadultsintheperiodfrom1998to2004.Itincludesspontaneousface-to-faceconversations,interviews,telephonedialogues,businessnegotiations,discussions,lectures,speechesandreadtexts.

WebisagainfromtheSoNaRcorpusandincludesblogs,discussionlists,e-magazines,newsletters,pressreleasesandWikipediaentries.

HowwecountedAcentralprobleminpreparingfrequencylistsisthewhelksproblem:ifthereisatextaboutwhelks(avarietyofmollusc)thenthewordwhelkwillprobablyoccurmanytimes.Wewouldrathernotgiveallofthoseoccurrencesequalweightinourwordfrequencylist.1Onesimpleandappealingstrategyisnottocountthenumberofoccurrencesofeachword,butthenumberofsamplesthewordoccursin.Then,howevermanytimeswhelksarementionedinasample,itwilljustcountasonesample.Ifsamplesaredifferentsizesparticularlyif,asoftenhappensincorpus-building,somearehundredsorthousandsoftimesaslongasothersthisisproblematicandfiguresarehardtointerpret.Butifallsamplesarethesamelength,therearenosuchcomplicationsandwehaveastraightforwardresponsetothewhelksproblem.Thisiswhatwehavedone.Allofthetexthasbeencutinto2,000-wordsamples,andthen

wecountthenumberofsamplesthateachwordoccursin.Wethenask,foreachgenre,foreachword,whatproportionofsamplesdoesitoccurin.Sincetherearedifferentquantitiesoftext,sodifferentnumbersofsamplesineachgenre,wenormalizethesefigurestogivepercentages.Forourdictionary,frequencieswillalwaysbepercentagesofdocumentsthataword

occursin.

ProcessingthecorpusdataAfterthecorpushadbeenassembled,ithadtobeprocessedbeforeafrequencylistcouldbeproduced.Thewordswerefirstlemmatizedandpart-of-speechtagged.Lemmatizingistheprocessofidentifying,foreachword,thelemma,ordictionaryheadword,itisassociatedwith.Thus,forthewordspeeldenplayedthelemmatizeridentifiesthattheheadwordisspelenplay.Part-of-speechtaggingistheprocessofidentifyingwhetherthewordisanoun,verb,adjective,etc.Forawordlikekindchildthisisstraightforward,sincethereisonlyoneoption,butformanywordsitinvolvesachoice,forexamplearmcanbeanounarmoranadjectivepoor,whichcanbedisambiguatedbylookingatthecontext.Alllemmatizationandpart-of-speechtaggingwasdoneusingtheFrogsoftware(Vanden

Boschetal.,2007).WhileFrogisgood,itdoesproduceerrors.Wehavecorrectedthemost

frequentandevidentonesmanually.

ThesixlistsForeachword,ineachgenre,thefrequencywasidentified.Wheretheaverageofthesefigureswasover1.125thewordwouldbeincluded.Thiswasthethresholdthatgavethetop5,000.

CorevocabularyThecorevocabularyofalanguagecomprisesthosewordsthatareusedacrossallkindsofusesofthelanguage.Thiswasimplementedasthosewordsthatoccurredwithafrequencyofatleastxineachofthefourgenres.Table2givesthenumberofwordsthatthismethoddelivers,forvariousvaluesofx.

Table2No.ofwordswithafrequencyofxineachofthefourgenres

Weusedthe4.5marktoidentifycorevocab,givingus943core-vocabwords.Thesewordswerethensetasideanddonotfeatureinanyotherlists.

ThegenrelistsThebasemethodis,foreachgenre:

listthewordsaccordingtofrequencyincludethetopitems.

Thecomplicationisthatsomewordswilloccurintwo,threeorfourofthelistsgeneratedinthisway,andforsuchcaseswehavetodecidewhethertheygoin:

justonelistmorethanonelistthegenerallist.

Ourstrategyistosaythereshouldbesomecasesofeach,asfollows:

ifhighestfrequencyisatleastdoublethenexthighest,listinthatgenreonlyiftwoarehighandtwoarelow,thatis,thefirst-andsecond-highest,andbothmorethandoubletheothertwo,listthetoptwoinbothotherwiselistingeneral.

Weacknowledgethatthisismorecomplexthanonemighthavehoped.Applyingthisalgorithmgivesthefollowingcounts(Table3):

Table3Wordstogoineachofthegenrelists

Wenotethefamiliarfindingthatwrittentextsusemoredifferentwordsthanspoken(soalargerproportionoftokensinspokenmaterialwillcomprisecorewords)andthatthewebisamixture,sharingsomecharacteristicsofconversationbutalsosharingvocabularywithnewspaperandfiction.

ThegenerallistThisleaves2004wordsforthegenerallist.

OtherDutchfrequencylistsFrequencylistsforDutcharenotnew.Thebest-knownreferenceisWoordfrequentiesingeschrevenengesprokenNederlandsbyP.C.UitdenBoogaart,from1975.Itisbasedonacountof720,000wordsfromspokenandwrittenlanguages.AnotherispartofCELEX,atrilinguallexicaldatabaseofDutch,EnglishandGerman,first

releasedin1990withasecondreleasein1996(Baayen,PiepenbrockandGulikers).Thisusedacorpusof42millionwordsoflanguagewhichisnowover20yearsold,fromatimebeforetheinternet.TherearealsofrequencylistsfromarangeofcorporaavailablethroughTST-Centrale.2

Howevertheselistsareraw.Theyarenotplanned,checkedandcorrectedtomakearesourcethatisusefulforlanguagelearners.Thisdictionarydiffersfromthepreviouslistsinthatitdescribesthecommonestwordsof

current-dayDutchandistargetedatthelanguagelearnerwhowillbenefitfromtheexamplesentencesillustratingthewords.Inaddition,thethematiclistscanbeusedforself-study,teaching,assessment,materialsdevelopmentandresearchpurposes.

ThemainfrequencylistsThemainpartofthebookisformedbythesixfrequencylists:core,fiction,newspapers,spoken,webandgeneral.Thestructureofeachentryintheselistsisasfollows:

rank,headword,partofspeech,Englishequivalentsamplesentenceoccurrencesper100documents

Aconcreteexampleistheentryfor

509televisienounde(f)television

Hijzettedetelevisieaanomnaarhetnieuwstekijken.16.55

Thisentryshowsthatwordnumber509inourrankorderlistforthecorevocabularyisthenountelevisietelevision.Itisafemininenounwithafrequencyof16.55per100documents.Theexamplesentencesshowthewordsasmuchaspossibleinarepresentativenatural

context.Thesentencesweresuppliedsemi-automaticallyusingtheGDEXtool(Kilgarriffetal.,2008)fromtheSketchEngine.GDEXautomaticallyprovidedsixcandidatesentencesfromthecorpusforeachheadword.Fromthesesixexamples,thebestonewaschosenmanually.Inmanycasesthisstillinvolvedshorteningandsimplifyingtheoriginalcorpussentencestomakethemsuitableforthelanguagelearner.Forinstance,referentialpronounswerereplacedbypersonalpronouns.Ifnoneoftheautomaticallyselectedexamplesentenceswasgood,anexamplewaspreparedafterexaminingmorecorpusexamples.

GrammaticaldetailanddifficultcasesAsnotedabove,thepartsofspeechinthedictionaryare:adjectives,adverbs,articles,conjunctions,interjections,nouns,numbers,prepositions,pronouns,verbs.

AdjectiveInflectedadjectiveshavebeenlemmatizedinthebaseform,whichmeansthatwordssuchasmooie,mooierandmooistareallincludedintheentrymooibeautiful.ManyDutchadjectivescanalsobeusedasadverbs,asisforinstancethecaseinhijschrijftmooihewritesbeautifully.Insuchcasestheadverbialuseofthewordisconsideredsecondarytotheadjectivaluseandthesewordsarelabelledasadjectives(adj).

AdverbAdverbsarenotinflectedinDutch.Adverbialuseofadjectivesisnotlistedseparately.Examplesofadverbsarealtijdalways,samentogether.

ArticleDutchhastwodefinitearticlesandoneindefinitearticle.Thedefinitearticlesaredeandhet.Thearticledeisusedforpluralnounsandmasculineandfemininesingularnouns,whereashetisusedforsingularneuternouns.Theindefinitearticleiseen.Thisarticlecanalsofunctionasanumber(one)orasapronoun(acertain).

ConjunctionDutchdistinguishescoordinatingandsubordinatingconjunctions.Examplesofcoordinatingconjunctionsareenand,ofor,maarbutandwantbecause.Subordinatingconjunctionsincludeomdatbecause,terwijlwhileandzodatsothat.Thedistinctionbetweensubordinatingandcoordinatingconjunctionsisnotmarkedinthedictionary.

NounDutchnounscanbesortedintocommonandneutergender,shownbygivingthearticlesdeandhet.Thecommongendergroupstogethermasculineandfemininenouns.However,the

historicalmasculine-femininedistinctionseemstobedisappearinginparticularintheNetherlandsbutlesssoinBelgium.Wherethegenderhasnotbeenlost,thisismarkedintheentrybyeitheranf(forfeminine)orm(formasculine)afterthearticlede.Thusthefollowingtypesoccurinthedictionary:

noun,het,e.g.kindchildnoun,de,e.g.plaatslocation,placenoun,de(m),e.g.manmannoun,de(f),e.g.vrouwwomannoun,de/het,e.g.figuurfigure

Nounsthatoccurexclusivelyoralmostalwaysintheplural,e.g.hersenenbrain,aregiventhepartofspeechnounpl.

NumberBothordinalandcardinalnumbersareincludedinthelists.Thereisalsoaseparatetablegroupingtheordinalandcardinalnumberstogether.

InterjectionExamplesofinterjectionsarejayes,neenoandohah.Theyoccurmainlyinspokenlanguage,orintextsthatrepresentspokenlanguage.Althoughmanydictionariesleavethemout,theydohavemeanings,andareimportantforlanguagelearnersiftheyaretosoundlikeanativespeaker.

PrepositionDutchprepositionsgenerallyhaveavarietyofmeaningswhichcannoteasilyberepresentedinasimpleentry.Examplesareinin,vanof,opon,voorforandmetwith.Themostcommonmeaningisgiven.

PronounDutchpronounscanbedividedintoseveralsubclasses,butforthepurposeofthefrequencydictionarythishasnotbeendone.Theirtranslationincombinationwiththeexamplesentencesmakestheirmeaningandsubclassclear.Inadditionaseparatetablehasbeenincludedforpersonalandpossessivepronouns.

VerbOnlytheinfinitiveformofverbsislisted.Allinflectedformshavebeenlemmatizedwiththeinfinitiveform.InsomecasesthepastorpresentparticipleinDutchislexicalizedandhasbecomeanadjective,e.g.beslistcertainly(