Assimilation in Sater Frisian

(C) Pyt Kramer

1. Introduction

This paper is about assimilation in Sater Frisian (Sfr.), which is an archaic Frisian dialect, spoken near the Dutch border in Northwest Germany. Here assimilation means 'a linguistic process by which a sound becomes similar to an adjacent sound' (Wikipedia). This may also concern assimilation within a word, as in e.g. Sapkouke ‘liquorice’, probably from saabje ‘to suck’ + Kouke ‘cake’.

For Sater Frisian, however, the approach here is restricted to phenomena occurring at the collision of two words. Furthermore, the approach is based on spoken language, as documented in rather narrow transcriptions[1] of sound records made in the years 1950 till 2000 for the New Saterfrisian Dictionary (Kramer 1992, listed there p.14-17); together about 138 hours from a wide selection of speakers from all three villages[2], mostly in free speech or narration, yielding over 6 MB of text data. By treatment in a concordance program (Wconcord) the words of all texts can be arranged according to their initial or final character, with those of the left or right neighbour words as second principle of arrangement. In this way it was possible, to carry out statistical analysis in order to define possible factors benefiting assimilation. In this way also phenomena at word boundaries possibly caused by other influences can be observed. Word-internal processes are only examined occasionally. By the way this paper intends to give the first structurised presentation of the material rather than its full analysis. Since this method of material gathering entirely concerns the speech act, interesting differences appear with respect to conventional investigations in other languages.

2. Progressive Assimilation

This concerns the cases, in which a sound influences a following one[3]. As a consequence, the initial sound of a word will be changed. The result usually is hardening or voicing of the initial sound.

2.1 Initial hardening is mostly found with d-, which becomes t-.

The result is shown here in numbers as the quotient of the number of cases in which hardening appears over those without hardening. In addition the absolute number is expressed by the length of the bars, in order to show the statistical relevancy of the forms. With that variants have been included, as e.g. dùsse, düsse to dìsse. Only in the case of dät, the variants dä and däd have been treated separately. Some frequent words like dit, Dai have been excluded, because counting was disturbed by t-forms, i.e. variants of Tid ‘time’ and tai ‘press’.

Fig. 1. Initial hardening t- from d- .

The vertical axis is arranged according to the quotient of the number of words with hardened initial t- over that of the words with original d-. Listed successively for FUNCTION WORDS meaning: there, that, the, there, thee, though, that, than, the, the, thou, that, this and for CONTENT WORDS meaning: thousand, thing, today, days successively.

The horizontal bar length presents the number of words with initial sound hardening on a logarithmic scale, in order to show the importance of a phenomenon.

In the case of der 'there' (unstressed) for instance it yields 1347 times ter (bar length) over 3687 times der (quotient = 0,37 or ter in 0,37/1,37 = 27% of all cases).

The bulk of results is found to be between 0,11 and 0,16, which means that hardening occurs in about 10 to 15% of the cases. Only the unstressed variant der of deer shows considerably more hardening, in contrast to often more accentuated du, which shows less hardening. So far it concerns function words, that in frequent combinations often can be considered as enclitic elements, e.g. ter in dät ter ‘that there’ (cf. van der Meer e.a. 1986:304, Visser 1988:1f.). In case of content words, which are usually more accentuated, I found the phenomenon only sporadically, that is below 0,05 (below 5%). With that it only concerns a few cases, as with the less frequent function words treated above, like dìsse.

Now we have to determine the conditions for hardening, i.e. by which preceding sounds it

is caused. For this the variant däd has been chosen, because on the one hand it shows a manageable number of cases, whereas on the other hand it does not differ too much from the main form dät[4] in the general result in fig. 1. To that end the preceding sounds have been examined in the concordance-result and totaled for each case.

The results are presented below in fig. 2, in which always the left hand bars show the cases with hardening and the right hand bars those without hardening. With 'that' as a conjunction (about 5% of the cases with däd), hardening seems to be less frequent, which might be caused by its position in the sentence - often after intervals - in that case.

Assuming no assimilation can occur across an interval, it is striking that in that position still 5% of the cases yields hardening. More about that in paragraph 3.10.

Fig. 2. Dependence of initial hardening on the preceding sound.

Bar length (logarithmically indicated) shows the number of cases with (left hand bar of a pair) and without hardening (right hand bar). Ps indicates a preceding interval (pause), Vk a vowel and Tt the total of all cases. Special characters1 present the liquids l^ [»], r^ [c] and the voiced consonants g^ [(], k^ [g] und p^ [b], resulting from final voicing.

Furthermore it appears that hardening to t nearly exclusively appears after the voiceless consonants ch, k, p, f, t, s, after which the unhardened consonant d only seldom (22x altogether) is found, as expected. It especially appears, however, after the voiced consonants b, w, d and l. After nasals and vowels hardening is totally absent, as well as after r, after g^, k^, p^ resulting from voicing and after vocalised r^.

The sound g^ [(] as resulting from spirantisation (see below 2.3) occasionally shows hardening to ch [x] (Fig. 3). With that, the sound ch is abundant after voiceless consonants ch, k und t.

Only rarely appears hardening of w (to f) and b (to p). The very frequent words wi ‘we’, wier ‘where’ and was ‘was’ show no hardening, e.g.

bääfte 'loangs, uur e 'Haupsträite 'bruk | wi | nìt, wail di Fer'keer ùk tou 'fuul ìs. D [B112U]

Fig. 3. Initial hardening of g^, w, b to ch, f and p respectively. Listed words mean gone, not at all, good, when/whenever, soon.

2.2 Initial voicing.

This is mainly limited to the voiceless Frisian initial s. The voicing product is presented here as z [z], for function words (fig. 4) as well as for content words (fig. 5).

Fig. 4. Initial voicing of s to z in function words. Listed are she/they, otherwise, seldom, since, sure, himself etc., his m., around, such a, so, his f., something (like), so much, such.

Fig. 5. Initial voicing of s to z in content words. (*For sjoo including conjugated forms). Listed are hall, rush, saw, sock, chat, sickle, jellied meat, soldier, soup, sea, sort, sentence, salt, sister, sail, sun, soup, PLACENAME, are, churn, sand, to sit, sacks, care, six, church, scythe, sit, see, puts, to put, inhabitant of Saterland, side.

In both cases the quotient Q shows a maximum about 0,05, which means that voicing appears in 5% of the cases. Only se 'she; they' is with Q=2,98 far over 1, thus being realised as z in 3/4 of the cases, which may arise from the fact that it only functions as enclitic form of ju. According to van der Meer 1986:4ff. und Visser 1988:1 it can be considered to form one word with the preceding.

With content words also some appears with Q over 1. In that case one has to reckon with borrowing or influence from High or Low German.

Below it is shown how preceding sounds influence this initial voicing for the case of zoo/soo.

Fig. 6. Dependence of initial voicing on preceding sound with the aid of the number of voiced (left hand bars) and of voiceless forms (right hand bars) respectively of soo ‘so’

It appears that voicing is found relatively seldom after intervals (cf. paragraph 3.10). So voiceless s is clearly the normal initial sound, with which Sater Frisian is strongly differing from the Low German surroundings. As to be expected, voicing also is relatively seldom after voiceless consonants ch, k, p, f, t, s, but it is frequent after g^, d, z and somewhat less after other consonants and after vowels. Frequent zik after r^ is based on the often used expression an un foar^ zik ‘in itself’.

With other consonants initial voicing only appears sporadically, in which t, p, f, k become d, b, w and g respectively (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7. Initial voicing of k, f, p, t. Listed are can, said, for, earlier, of, pot, tight, turn, between, to.

2.3 Spirantisation of occlusives

This is only significant with g, as shown in the example gout ‘good’ (Figs. 8 and 9; the more frequent variant goud is disregarded because of interference with frequent utterances of the interrogator, which are recorded in standard spelling). The spirantised form g^out is only significantly more frequent after uvular fricatives ch and g^.

Fig. 8. Spirantisation of occlusives g, d, b, k to g^, z, w, ch respectively. Listed are good, that, with, came, to say.

Fig. 9. Dependence of spirantisation on the preceding sound. The left hand bars shows the number of forms with spirantisation.

In this case, however, there are also dialectical variations. The normalised representation of both forms in the three village dialects is given below in percentages:

Dialect >> R=Ramsloh U=Utende/Strücklingen S=Scharrel

g^out 20 37 43

gout 41 34 25

Share in recordings 18 35 47

The spirantised form g^ [(] is therefore weakly represented in Ramsloh, but strongly in Schäddel, whereas Strücklingen lays in between. In the total result, Ramsloh has a relative small weight, because it has a smaller share in the total of recordings.

Minssen (1965:102-106) denotes 1846 for Scharrel, but also for the rare quotations from the other dialects throughout initial l (which because of e.g. háele(1965:107) ‘dungheap’ has to be evaluated

as [(], although it should represent the 'harder pronunciation ('härtere Aussprache') of g' according to 1854:166, as also Siebs (19012:1390), although Matuszak (61-66) it only presents for the Low German neighbour dialect of Leer. An alternative is, that [(] represents the original pronunciation, so that in a historical sense it would concern a transition to occlusive rather than spirantising.

2.4 Nasalisation of labials only rarely appears: 3x mi for bi ‘with’, 1x mät for wäd ‘becomes’, 2x mi for wi ‘we’, 5x man for wan ‘when’, all without special surrounding features. It therefore has to be regarded as an incidental phenomenon.

2.5 Plosivation and palatalisation of sch-.

Initial sch is usually pronounced [sx] in Sfr. Instead of that sporadically plosivation to sk or palatisation to sc’h [∫] appear.

Fig. 10. Dependence of plosivation and palatisation of sch_ on preceding sounds using the examples of Schäddel ‘village Scharrel', schäl ‘shall', Schìp ‘ship', schoanke ‘endow’ und Schoule ‘school'. Each time the data present the sum of results for all five single words. The left hand bars denote palatalisation to sc'h, the central ones plosivation to sk and the (bright) right hand bars original [sx]. Here c denotes the shwa and Vk the other vowels.

According to fig. 10, both phenomena like to appear after intervals, after vowels and after dentals n and t. With sc’h- influence of High German (nhd.) of the Saterland people themselves can easily play a role (e.g. in their nhd. schon/schön 31x [∫] is found besides 48x [sx][5]).

With sk- it usually concerns usual expressions, as e.g. in

lster. D ùn e .. P ùn^ wan 'djoo ätter^ | 'Skoule | geene 'früüer, dan^ most hi al eenlich [B34U]

In this case a word combination as ätter^ 'Skoule is perhaps regarded as one word, where medial -sk- predominates (fig. 11).

Fig. 11. Represention of medial sch. Bars show from top on: s (only in Maschine), sc’h [∫] (bright bars), sch, sk. In Maschine sch [sx] predominates (by Low German influence?), otherwise sk.

2.6 Palatalisation of s to [∫] in the sequence s + consonant.

This sporadically appears (fig. 12) in sfr. words, as e.g. Sc’htìkke for Stìkke ‘stick’. High German influence has to reckoned with in this case.

Fig. 12. Palatalisation of initial s in sm, sl, sw, sn, sp, st.

2.7 Vocalising of initial w.

This rather rare phenomenon ([w] for [v]) mainly appears in Scharrel. Siebs (19012:1391) mentions labial w especially for elder people, but Matuszak (e.g. 151) denotes for Scharrel throughout å [w] instead of w. According to Minssen (1854:167) initial w is sharply aspirated ‘like English wh’, but in some words now more, now less. He presents some examples with (wînd ‘wind’, warld ‘world’, wîrne ‘were’) and some without (wrîûe ‘to rub’, wröge ‘check’) aspiration. That points toward already

varying pronunciation at that time.

On the whole I found this phenomenon in about 1% of all cases (Fig. 13, upper bar bundle). Spreading according to speakers for the word wi ‘we’ occasionally yields vocalising to w^i with 3 (U) + 2 (R) + 7 (S) = 12 speakers, i.e. at least in Scharrel for nearly all speakers with whom recordings have been made. Therefore also [w] could be the original pronunciation, in which case fig. 14 would represent the factors blocking transition to [v].

Fig. 13. Vocalising of initial w [v] to w^ [w] and ww^ [vw] in the dialects of (in each bar bundle from top on) Strücklingen/Utende (U), Ramsloh (R) and Scharrel (S) in the whole and in some words (we, we enclitic, what/becomes, was, what). The lower bar presents the total output of non-vocalised w [v].

Fig. 14 shows that in the example w^ät vocalised w especially appears after intervals, so that it perhaps should be regarded as 'zero form' in that case. Furthermore it appears after occlusives k and t, after voiced consonants (l, m, n, n^, r, r^, z) and after vowels. In the example w^e vocalising much stronger appears after vowels. In that case it almost exclusively concerns combinations with verbal shortforms as hä w^e ‘have we’, kwi w^e ‘said we’, mou w^e ‘must we’ etc., that are relatively more rare with other non-vocalised we.

Fig. 14. Dependence of vocalising of initial w [v] on preceding sound with w^e ‘we’ (left hand bars) and w^ät ‘what/ becomes’ as an example.

For the sake of completeness one should mention that vocalising also rarely appears in w as a second component in compositions kw, sw, tw (Fig. 15). Dialectal distribution could make one to regard [w] as original sound in this case, but Minssen (1854:166) indicates, that it was pronounced as kw, although he writes qu.

Fig. 15. Vocalising of w [v] after initial consonant k, s or t to w^ [w] with dialectal distribution U (Strücklingen, bright bar) and S (Scharrel) in the words kweede ‘to say’ and Swin ‘pig’.

2.8 Loss of d.

Initial d is sometimes lost, which only occurs in some very frequent function words, namely articles de and dän, as well as seldom adv. der (fig.16, 17).

Fig. 16. Loss of initial d. With e occurrence in front of intervals (about 60%) has been neglected, because in that position it almost entirely concerns e as a hesitation sign.* i.e. 10% of 12916 times n, the remainder is indefinite masculine article ‘a, an’.

This loss especially appears after frequent prepositions 'on', 'of', 'out of' as in ap e, fon e, ut e, in which it has to be regarded as full assimilation: ap pe, fon ne, ut te. Also these frequent combinations perhaps have to be regarded as one word (c.s. Van der Meer e.a. 1986:314f). Apart from that it seems that single e also without following hesitation functions as a hesitation sign, e.g.

delsk wieren. [] Nä? Ooder rakt ùk ja .. | e | 'Maansken doo 'kìddelsk sü^nt, nä. [] Ik [B150S]

Fig. 17. Dependence of loss of initial d (left hand bars) on preceding sound in de (art. f. & pl.).

2.9 Assimilation in ‘changed’ consonants.

In general this behaves as in phonetically corresponding original consonants, thus k^ like g, p^ like b, r^ like vowels. That yields interesting cases like

"Jee, dät weet ik^ | 'g^out | ", kwi ik. "De.. dat weet ik g^out" [B90S],

in which both consonants seem to provide a part of the assimilation: k becomes voiced and g spirantised. That k, however, is originally not at least spirantic, which again could point to g^ [(] as original pronunciation instead of g (cf. paragraph 2.3). In the other direction, however, points the fact that g^ also appears in neologisms like 'udg^ereekent [B14R] from nhd. ausgerechnet 'calculated' and 'Loop^g^ìtter [B198S] from nhd. Laufgitter ’playpen.

Only with loss of initial d there is a significant difference between the behaviour after p^ and after b (fig. 17). Unique Bi 'us ap^ | e | Bu'räi? [B14S] besides 22x ap^ de and usual ap e shows why: only loss of d is simpler than at first (regressive) Assimilation of p and d-loss afterwards.

Unfortunately my transcription applies simple t and d for changed d and t respectively, making further conclusions in that impossible. For g^ and l^ direct unchanged phonetic resemblances are missing.

3. Regressive assimilation

This concerns cases, in which a sound influences a preceding one. The result is final change.

3.1 Final hardening mainly appears in some frequent verbal forms and in the preposition mäd 'with, whereas Sfr. usually shows voiced occlusives (Fig. 18).

Fig. 18. Final hardening of d and b to t and p respectively. Shown are has/hard, with, became, said, (I) have.

Fig. 19. Dependence of final hardening on the following sound with mäd ‘with’ as an example. The right hand bars show the occurrence of the hardened form.

After fig. 19, the form mäd has sole reign in front of voiced occlusives (g, b, d) and of some voiced fricatives (g^, z) and also prevails before voiced sounds like m, r and especially n, as well as before semivowels (j, l) and vowels and even before the voiceless guttural h. In contrast mät is more frequent in front of intervals and of voiceless consonants k, p, f, t and s.

In many cases, however, both forms appear, so that other factors should be active. Good media to analyse this, are such where both forms have about the same frequency, like in front of labial fricatives f and w. Next are the cases of mäd (16x) and mät (14x) in front of w for further analysis (single capitals denote different speakers):

'Waslap! H Wä? L Kust te 'Näkke faiñ | mäd | waaske ùn alle'weeg^eñse kust ter^ mä [B139R

Woater]. 'Häd Waater? [] 'Jäi, dät häd | mäd | 'Waater tou dwoon, dä ìz e.. 'i.. 'ier^z [B93S]

wude läsked/löösd]. 'Lösket. [] Lösket | mäd | 'Waater. [Wi häbbe tjäärsene noch n [B169U]

r^m deroane, ùnt e.. häwwe 'däd dan .. | mäd | 'Waater^ .. tou'zoamen maaket, dät et[B114U]

t ik. Wier^ feeg^et man 'Spìnschär^lse | mäd | wäch? Dät wude 'fröier _ for 'aalen Dìn[B196S

ju 'Boukete säidet. Dan .. hieden doo .. | mäd | wäd.. 'wäkkeñ doo hinen dan n ge'walti[B97R]

gans.. 'dü^ftech. Deer^ ku man langer^ | mäd | 'wai az mäd n Fidebùs .. foñ Pa'pier.[B122U]

d e.. wäd 'dì'jaag^ ìs. Wier^ we 'loange | mäd | 'wai kuume. {stilset} Wi mouten us wä[B115U]

u Side 'soogeñ. Sìk^ ge'meen 'maakje .. | mäd | 'wäl? Alzoo nìt 'appasje.., allez deer^' [B212S]

t waskeñ.. H Az wän t 'Leeder^ was. F | Mäd | 'waskeñ dañ geenen wi mäd n 'Bäär^se[B129S

äd meene Ji: soo man n bìtje oarbaidje | mäd | wät et rakt?] Aal mañ mäd de Hoound[B160S]

sche.. schù.. D Raue 'Tùffel! {Pld.}. A | Mäd | we.. 'jee. D Räie 'Tùwwelke. A Dä z eñ[B173R

moal^ n 'gans läipe .. 'Grùmmelschuur^ | mäd | 'Wìnthooze oon {=ùn} doo g^in däd '[B112U]

'alle Woude kon hi 'ùk^ nìd äntsìffer^je | mäd | 'Woar^terbouk. 1 'Nee, doo .. 'däär^ k[B100R]

de 'Woude wiete. H Wäl? L Hi wol no | mäd | 'Woude moor^ wite. [Gräine Stripen a[B139R]

er^sk 'hat. De Spräkwooude mä 'Tonge, | mäd | 'Wüme, mäd 'Hunt, Kat, Doore, Äkse.[B187S]

e .. fon dù 'Ploañkeñ, doo w^ùdden dañ | mät | 'Wäär^k, dät kee.. wùdde fon e.. fon e[B117U]

ùn dañ most tär mäd de 'Schìtterbü^sse | mät | 'Waater most ter^ .. 'twìske schìttert w [B92S]

'Waater 'pùlskje. Di Wäänd di 'pùl^sket | mät | 'Waater. [?] Jä, dä we.. dät 'Waater w[B86U]

Dañ koñ mañ wùl 'kweede: Hi 'kü^lpet | mät | 'Waater. kulje dä s 'prässen {prellen} [B209S]

ìn n 'Tun fain 'lik maaket. [ooder..] ùn | mät | 'waazjen häd er t noch 'froier maake[B108U]

'Sproake, där^ kus{t} je.. nì.. naag^es | mät | 'waikume, dät .. kust je nìt moal 'ume[B157U]

Ploañken .. je 'beeg^et uur n 'Fjuur .. | mät | wäite 'Säkke.., dät se .. der^ 'Wölbun[B136U]

, nu 'ìz dät nìt moor soo _ n 'Wäipot .. | mät | 'Wäiwaater deroan..; dät rakt 'Paaske[B143U]

ans strääwig^e.., F 'strääweg^e, oaber^ | mät | waskeñ.. H Az wän t 'Leeder^ was. F [B129S]

.. ùn ju 'lìtje Trùmmel .. deer^ wäär^t | mät | 'weer^bel^t. {'gewirbelt'?} [Die Trùm[B116U]

chäl je wü^l .. 'dät mee.. mùnd_ gerächt | mät | 'weeze, nät. Alzoo mùndgerät tät.. [] [B84U]

ufsçhi.. 'jäi, wän 'ik nu kweede fon e.. | mät | wen eñ Prù'säs häbbe ùñ fär'sliepje dät.[B92S]

'Äkken kuden dät mäd 'ur^, nät. ùn dañ | mät | 'Wilg^en umetou.. ume'tou wìkkel^t.., [B157U]

eeg^e 'nìt freete ' wülen, nä. J Oan tou | mät | 'wìs wäiter schin. B Döt em dät nìd g[B144R]

There are no clear differences in following syllables. In both cases stress is 11x especially denoted. Larger differences are shown by the final sounds of preceding syllables:

after interval n n^ t s d r^ vowel total

mäd w 6 1 1 1 2 5 16

mät w 3 1 2 4 1 1 2 14

So hardening to mät significantly appears less after intervals and vowels, but more after t and s. The last case suggests progressive assimilation at a distance because of rhyming effect.

3.2 Final voicing of t to d appears in several words (Fig. 20).

Fig. 20. Final voicing of t to d. Listed are CONTENT WORDS: are, night, late, comes, is called, knows, must, goes, can, must, hole and FUNCTION WORDS: not, it, what/becomes, that, out.

According to fig. 21, voiced forms predominate in front of voiced occlusives g, b, d and fricative g^ [(]. About the same results appear with nìt ‘not’ (fig. 43, lower diagram). In general, tendencies are the same as in fig. 19, be it with a much weaker representation of the voiced form.

Fig. 21. Dependence of final voicing on the following sound with ut ‘out’ as an example. The left hand bars show the occurrence of the voiced form.

3.3 Loss of final dental often appears with some frequent forms (fig. 22).

Fig. 22. Loss of final t and d.

According to fig. 23, loss resulting in mä is relatively seldom in front of d (cannot always well be judged), h, n and of vowels, but more frequent in front of intervals, g, g^, k, m, p, w, f, t, s, r, j, l and very frequent before k, p, t, s. As with loss of initial d (2.8) this in fact is full assimilation, be it that in that case the influence of e.g. neighbouring f, s, w is much smaller. Therefore fricatives as a following sound seem to have a larger influence.

Fixed word orders appearing in this case are 93x mä ju (against 15x mäd ju), 231x mä + art. n (762x mäd n), 12x mä reekenje (0x mäd ~), 106x mä + art. t (186x mäd dät).

Fig. 23. Dependence of final loss and rhotacism on the following sound, using mäd ‘with’ as an example. The left hand bars show the occurrence of loss, the bright right hand ones that of rhotacism.

3.3.1 Rhotacism of final d (fig. 23) appears particularly (up to about 80% of cases) in Scharrel. It looks like an intensified pronunciation of d, in that the alveolar r can be regarded as a doubling of d. In terms of assimilation, the significant absence of rhotacism in front of b and n is worth being noticed, whereas it strongly appears before vowels and intervals. Strikingly is its appearance in front of consonants (e.g. t and s), where on the other hand loss is relatively frequent. One may compare rhotacism in Low German harr ‘had’ (e.g. Remmers 1997:104).

It should be mentioned, that häd in the less frequent meaning 'hard' also occasionally shows rhotacism of final d, but never loss of it.

3.4 Voicing of final -p, -k appears in some, mainly frequent words (Fig. 24).

Fig. 24. Final voicing of p and k to p^ [b] and k^ [g] respectively, as well as fricativisation (3.4.1) of g to g^ [(].

It appears that voicing of p (fig. 25), as well as of k (fig. 26) is triggered most strongly by g, b, d, thus by voiced occlusives, as to be expected.

Fig. 25. Dependence of final voicing of p on following sound with ap ‘up’ as an example. The left hand bars show the occurrence of the voiced form p^ [b].

Fig. 26. Dependence of final voicing of k on following sound with ùk ‘also’ as an example. The left hand bars show the occurrence of the voiced form k^ [g].

3.4.1 Fricativisation of [g] arisen from voicing (3.4) to g^ [(] appears much less frequent, again with frequent words (fig. 24, lower bundle). With ig^ is not accounted for 65 representations of NHG 'ich', which apart from that 307x appears as ich [ix].

3.5 Change of n is transcribed as n^ or ñ. This, however, represents three different sounds, depending on the following sound. In fig. 27 all three are presented together, whereas in fig. 28 they can be regarded separately with neen 'none' as an example. With intervals, however, one is unable to conclude from the transcription, which sound appears. For that, paragraph 3.10 has to be consulted.

Fig. 27. Change of final n to n^. Listed are none, then, a moment, small, my, none m., my m., a bit, but, one m., one, when, into, of, am, be acquainted, when, on.

3.5.1 Gutturalisation. In front of guttural occlusives (g, k) the sound n is assimilated to zu ng [õ]. This effect most strongly appears in front of k.

3.5.2 Labialisiation. In front of labial occlusives (b, p) and of m the sound n is assimilated to m, in all three cases apparently to the same degree.

3.5.3 Nasalisation. In front of other sounds n is lost and the preceding vowel in the word is nasalised.

Fig. 28. Dependence of change of final -n on the following sound with neen ‘none’ as an example. The left hand bars show the occurrence of the changed form.

In the example of neen (fig. 28) the effect most frequently appears as labialisation before labials and next as gutturalisation before gutturals. The effect is weak in front of vowels, of dentals n, t, d and of h. Before s, r, z, j, l changed and unchanged forms appear in nearly the same degree, without indication about the possible cause of change. There seems to be some dialect dependence: before l the cases of neen are distributed over R,U,S like 3:11:6, those of neen^ like 5:6:12, therefore showing increase of nasalisation from north (U) to south (S). Here the cases for Leeder 'leather' (on wooden shoes) are presented as an example:

in^lik too 'rìchtig^e Hoske, dät.. där^ z | 'neen | 'Leeder aape.., 'steedenwize. Doo häb[B126U]

jen fon 'Idafeen häär. Dan hinen ze no | neen | 'Leeder ap 'Hoske. Dan hinen ze 'een^f[B109U]

e 'Wrig^e gìngen^ .. ùn^ wier^ man dan | neen^ | 'Leeder ap houg^e.. 'brukte. ìn 'Hollou[B132S]

gans uur de..{krop}] 'Rìchtig^.., wier | neen^ | 'Leeder ap ìs. ùn 'Trìphoske .. dät wier^ [B180S

Ji kwiden Rou'hoske?] M. Deer^ kùmt | neen^ | Leeder 'ap. [] Nä. Doo 'Hollounder, d[B169U]

^ne g^ans 'udboor^de Hoske.., doo ùk | neen^ | 'Leeder hiden ap e Wrige. Än dät wier^ [B187S

tù wür^ {=waas?} {d}e{r} ùk no bolde | neen^ | 'Leeder oape. Dan^ 'zuuzden wi där^ trù [B98R]

ù .. dù 'bùnte 'Hollounder dù häbbe je | neen | Leeder, deer^ kost je goarneen^ Leeder [B165S]

3.5.4 A special case arises when final -n is preceded in the word by a guttural or a labial. With that usually progressive word-internal assimilation occurs to ng [õ] or m respectively. This, however, is omitted occasionally (fig. 29), perhaps influenced by the following word, which then could be regarded as regressive assimilation.

Fig. 29. Omission of word-internal assimilation of final n after guttural or labial to n^ (i.e. here ng [õ] or m respectively). With e.g.keemen there assimilation is omitted in 7% of cases, with krig^en in two thirds. Listed are get, got, took/names, open, some, came, together, (have) come.

Fig. 30 shows omission of the effect after gutturals mostly in front of dental occlusives[6] t and d and then of intervals, of f, n, j, as well as of vowels. The least change to ng is hampered by fricatives w, s and z.

Fig. 30. Dependence of change of final n to n^ [õ] on following sound with kreeg^en ‘got’ as an example. Left hand bars show the occurrence of the changed form, the right hand ones consequently its omission.

Omission of change to m after labials is less frequent, according to fig. 29. Fig. 31 shows no clear dependence of the effect on the following sound. Only before d the effect seems to be slightly more frequent. It has to be considered, however, that many results in this figure only concern one case, yielding a weak statistical

evidence.

Fig. 31. Dependence of change of final n to n^ (m) on following sound with noomen ‘took/names’ as an example. Left hand bars show occurrence of the changed form, right hand ones its omission.

3.6 Vocalising of final -r to r^ (i.e. [c], sometimes with a palatal ending) often appears. It seems to be stress-dependent when comparing the large differences in the results shown in fig. 32 for different forms (däär, teer, deer, där, der) of ‘there’. They show a bandwidth of quotient q = 0,183 for der till q = 3,76 for the much stronger stressed däär. That may also explain the large differences in dependence on following sound between cases where -r is in the main syllable (fig. 34) or in an auxiliary syllable (fig. 35). For that compare the behaviour of content words (fig. 33).

Uvular -R [R] appears sporadically for many speakers in all three village dialects (fig. 33), in nearly all cases before intervals and in 95% of cases behind e [c], e.g. 5 x ätteR 'after'.

Fig. 32. Vocalising of final r to r^ [c] in function words. Listed are several forms of there, there, for, there, there, for, over, where/again, before, here, however, however, there/it, for, he, below, or, after, for, when, with.

Fig. 33. Vocalising of final r to r^ [c] in content words, as well as sporadic uvularising to -R [R].

Fig. 34. Dependence of vocalising of final r in main syllables on following sound, with Fjuur 'fire' as an example.

Fig. 35. Dependence of vocalising of final r in auxiliary syllables on following sound, with ätter 'after' as an example.

In main syllables (fig. 34) vocalising mainly appears in front of labials (b, m, w, f) and of liquids (j, l), as well as of guttural occlusives (g, k). Next come dentals (s, t, d), whereas in front of intervals and especially of vowels r^ appears less frequent.

In auxiliary syllables (fig. 35) the same tendencies appear with relatively weaker representation of vocalising. With final -er vocalising leads to lengthened shwa [c:].

3.7 Fricativisation of final sk-.

According to fig. 36, final -sk is sometimes fricativised to -sch [sx], more seldom palatal to -sc’h [∫] and mixed to -sc’hk [∫k]. Unique is Dìchk [dIxk] instead of Dìsk ‘table’.

Fig. 36. Fricativisation of final -sk.

As shown in fig. 37, both kinds of fricativisation especially appear before intervals and less before vowels. The isolated cases of -sch before h, w, s indicate a preference for following fricatives. But with -sch und -sc’h it mostly concerns words which apart from that sound equally in High and Low German, so that the phonetic effect perhaps has te be regarded as selective omission of phonetic borrowing.

Fig. 37. Dependence of fricativisation of final -sk on following sound with dütsk ‘German’ as an example. Left hand bars show results for -sch, central ones for -sc’h and (bright) right hand side ones for -sk.

3.8 Final voicing of voiceless uvular -ch [x] to voiced -g^ [(] appears according to fig. 38 with a modest 0,41 (about 29%) in flùch ‘nice’ till predominantly in kreech ‘got’.

Fig. 38. Voicing of final -ch to g^. Listed are got, today, dry, though, simple, through, yet, war, nice.

Fig. 39 shows a strong representation of the voiceless form before intervals. With kreech compared to flùch one should notice the higher frequency of voiced forms before vowels. It mostly concerns sequence verb + pronoun, as kreeg^ er, kreeg^ ik and also kreeg^ hi, which because its frequency perhaps has to be regarded as medial assimilation. As to be expected g^ mostly appears before voiced consonants, like g, g^, b, m, w, n, d, j, l.

Fig. 39. Dependence of voicing of final -ch to -g^ on following sound with flùch ‘nice’ (2 left hand bars) and kreech ‘got’. In each bundle bars represent g^, ch, g^, ch from left to right.

Were g^ [(] the original final form, so historically regarded it would concern hardening, as already finished in West Frisian (Tiersma 19992:26). Minssen (1965:39) denoted 1846 final -l, beside -g, e.g. nol ‘yet’ against nö^düg ‘necessary’, but also nôg besides nôl ‘enough’, in which g will represent [x]. Analysis of his texts (1970) for ‘yet’ yields 123x nol against 62x nog (fig. 40) with stronger representation of nol before b, w, n, s[!], d, which is conform our result in fig. 39, supposed l represents the voiced [(] (cf. 2.3). This enormous performance of our predecessor (without a sound recorder!) shows us, that presumably already at that time (1846) the assimilation situation was about equal to that of today. Unfortunately he only denoted such differences for this case.

Fig. 40. Dependence in Minssen's texts of change of final -g to -l (-g^) on following sound with nog ‘yet’ as an example. The strong occurrence of g^ before s suggests an uvular component (about voiced ich-sound), which I don't find anymore today, however.

3.8.1 Loss of final uvular -ch [x] occurs in some of the words that show voicing too (fig. 41). According to fig. 42 this loss occurs most frequently before dental occlusives d and t, but only little before vowels and intervals.

Fig. 41. Loss of final -ch. Listed are yet, though, through, got, simple.

Fig. 42. Dependence of loss of final -ch on following sound with trùch ‘through’ as an example.

3.9 Loss of final -e.

Among the phenomena at the word boundary one still has to mention, that often final shwa is lost in verbal forms wude ‘became’ and stude ‘stood’. According to fig. 43, this occurs especially before vowels and before voiced consonants, as could be expected.

Fig. 43. Dependence of loss of final shwa on following sound with wude ‘became’ as an example. Similar results appear with stude ‘stood’.

3.10 The behaviour with intervals is unexpected, because one would not expect assimilation across a pause (Tiersma, 19992:24). Therefore we compare the behaviour with three kinds of interval mutually and with respect to the behaviour without interval. As a test object one needs a very frequent word here, for which nit 'not' was chosen.

The clearest type of interval, across which one would not expect any assimilation whatsoever, would be the end-of-record, which in the transcription was denoted with a point, as usual. The dependence of final voicing on the sound following after the end-of-record is presented on top of fig. 44 (nìd.). Only such cases are taken into account in which the same person continues instantly.

A special kind of interval are hesitations, like they often appear in free speech. With that it could be such, that the speaker already adapted the word spoken before to that, what he originally planned to add. The results for hesitation are presented in the second row of fig. 44 (nìd..).

Commas constitute a natural interval, before the the speaker starts a new part of the sentence. Results for that are presented in the third row of fig. 44 (nìd,). At the bottom of that figure one finds the dependence in cases without interval (nìd).

Fig. 44. Comparison of dependence of final voicing on following sound after four kinds of interval with nìt ‘not’ as an example. From top on are presented the dependence across end-of-record, hesitation and comma, followed by the results without an interval.

In comparing the results in fig. 44 we start at the right hand side with the main result Tt. Before a point voicing is about five times weaker (20%, left hand bars relatively smaller) than in the case without an interval. (Apart from that: without assimilation across end-of-record one would expect 0% here!). Before hesitations one finds relatively more cases of voicing and before commas still more, even the same amount as without interval.

In order to investigate to what extent voicing has to be considered as to be really caused by assimilation, we compare the behaviour for some following sounds. Without interval, voicing predominates especially before voiced occlusives g, b and d, as to be expected.

In fig. 44 this influence gradually disappears in the diagrams towards the top, but even before end-of-record it is still considerable when d follows after it. This even can be quantified, when considering the relative influence from top on in that case is in the proportion 0,01:0,02:0,17:1, each time using the quotient of the two bar lengths. This means, that before end-of-record the influence has decreased by two orders of magnitude. Otherwise specified: ends-of-record are about 1% 'transparent' for assimilation, hesitations about 2%, and commas about 17%. For other following sounds, however, transparency for assimilation is smaller.

The transparency of ends-of-record and of hesitations indicates, that the speaker already seems to expect in advance, what he wants to say further. The main part of the 20% voicing before end-of-record, however, will result from other sources, as e.g. rhyme influence.

4.0 Results

Assimilation phenomena have been studied in spoken Sater Frisian.

With progressive assimilation frequent initial hardening (till tens of percents) appears in function words with initial d (2.1). As to be expected, this especially predominates after voiceless occlusives and only seldom after intervals and voiced consonants. In content words hardening of d- only appears occasionally, perhaps because of the stronger stress. Some content words with inital [(] still show frequent hardening to [x]. Function words often show initial hardening in the enclitic.

Initial voicing (2.2) mainly appears in the Frisian initial s, in function words in about 5% up to 75% in cases of the only enclitically applied se 'she/ they'. Initial voicing in soo 'so' predominates only after preceding d and z, but reaches less than 10% of the cases after vowels and intervals. Frequent voicing in some content words will originate from the neighbour languages.

Initial spirantising of occlusives is only frequent (30%) with g, which becomes g^ [(] (2.3). Spirantising predominates after guttural fricatives, but is also frequent in other cases, especially in the Scharrel dialect. It therefore perhaps partly concerns dialectical differences. Sporadically nasalisation of labials is encountered (2.4).

Plosivation and palatalisation (2.5) of initial sch to sk, or sc‘h [∫] only rarely appear (about 3%), in which the medial and final sk may play a role as well as influence from High German. Medially this change is only rarely found, but in the foreign word Maschine.

Palatalisation (2.6) of initial s + consonant (sm > sc’hm etc.) also rarely appears, as well as vocalising (2.7) of initial w and of w after initial consonant, in which case also dialectic influences appear. Total loss (2.8) of initial d often appears with some articles, especially after occlusives and after n. Asimilation in both colliding words (2.9) occurs in some cases.

Regressive Assimilation is found as e.g. final hardening. Hardening of final d to t appears in some frequent verb forms und in mäd 'with' in up to 25% of cases, mostly before following voiceless sounds. It seems, however, that this can be suppressed by progressive assimilation at a distance.

In a number of content and function words voicing (3.2) occurs of final t to d, mostly before voiced consonants and before intervals and vowels. As voicing we have to consider also total loss (3.3) of final d, which even predominates in some forms and likes to appear before voiceless consonants, but less before d, h, n and before vowels. An inverse effect seems to be rhotacism of final d (3.3.1). Final p and k show voicing to b and g (occasionally fricativised to [(]) (3.4).

Final n in function words is often changed to [õ] or to m or it shows loss with nasalisation of the preceding vowel (3.5). Such word-internal assimilation of final n is sometimes hampered by following consonants (3.5.4). Final [õt] is sporadically dentalised to -nt 6. Very frequent is vocalising of final r to r^ [c], most strongly before labials and weaker in auxiliary syllables than in main

syllables (3.6). Final [R] is sporadic. Fricativisation of final -sk to [sx] etc. is frequent (10%) before intervals (3.7). Very frequent voicing of final -ch to -g^ [(] especially appears before vowels and before voiced consonants (3.8). Some frequent verb forms show loss of final -e (3.9). After intervals unexpected changes appear, in which ends-of-record, hesitations, and especially commas are 'transparent' for assimilation (3.10), which might point to a time before production of the speech sound as the moment of origin of assimilation.

On the whole one can say, that assimilation of consonants at word boundaries is strongly represented in Sater Frisian, in a progressive as well as in a regressive sense. In this it shows hardening, voicing, spirantisation, plosivation, palatalisation, vocalising, dentalising, loss, rhotacism and fricativisation. In most cases it concerns a tendency to adapt pronunciation of the features voiced/voiceless. It is not always sure, which consonant has to be regarded as the original frorm, as with initial g (2.3) and w (2.7), as well as with final ch [x] (3.8). Apart from that, selective preservation of historic pronunciation might in some cases perhaps be regarded as assimilation in a synchronous sense.

It seems, as if along fixable rules there exists a kind of 'noise' with assimilation in spoken language. Perhaps assimilation at a distance plays a role, in that it seems able to hamper expected near-assimilation. In other cases, influence of other languages and dialects could be active. Perhaps a further analysis of texts on rhyme, alliteration, stress etc. could explain other exceptional cases, but that would go beyond the scope of this article.

Finally something should be said about the heterogenous character of the results. In figures as e.g. fig. 2 nearly always appear those double bars, which show inconsistent dependence on the surroundings, even in the Minssen material (fig. 40). With that, the results of this work strongly differ from what usually is found in grammars and dialect descriptions.

The reason of that is in the method of material gathering. The traditional researcher asks himself: "How do I pronounce it", or he asks other speakers about it. By such introspection one obtains an intermediate level towards 'langue', the well. This work, however, shows the final result of the speech act, the 'parole', and that may differ rather strongly from the 'langue'. Such an intermediate level I already found when studying d(e)-loss (Kramer 2007), which is rather frequent in spoken Sater Frisian, but nearly absent in written material.

One may ask which use it is, to record and to study all these utterances of the ‘parole’. In the realisation of speech they only play a late and secondary role. They become important, however, when one considers that it is possible to derive from them the beginning of language change. So in West Frisian, d(e)-loss is totally accomplished.

Literature

Kramer, P. (1992), Näi Seelter Woudebouk, Bd. 1 A-E, Selbstverlag, Elst.

Kramer, P. (2007), D(e)-deleesje yn it Sealtersk, Philologia Frisica anno 2005, S. 99-114.

Matuszak, Hans ([1951]), Die Saterfriesischen Mundarten von Ramsloh, Strücklingen und Scharrel inmitten des Niederdeutschen Sprachraumes, Typoschrift, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität, Bonn.

Meer, Geart van der/Graaf, Tseard de (1986), Sandhi phenomena in Frisian in: Andersen, H. (Hrsg.), Sandhi Phenomena in the Languages of Europe. Berlin/New York/Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter. s. 301_328.

Minssen, Johann Friedrich (1854), Mittheilungen aus dem Saterlande, im Jahre 1846 gesammelt, [Bd. 1], Vorwort und Das Zeitwortin: Friesisches Archiv 2, 135-227, Oldenburg.

Minssen, Johann Friedrich (1965), Mittheilungen aus dem Saterlande, im Jahre 1846 gesammelt, Bd. 2, Pronomen, Adjectivum und die übrigen kleinen Redetheile, Alliteration, Reim & das Substantivum, schabloniert, Fryske Akademy Nr. 270, Ljouwert (Leeuwarden).

Minssen, Johann Friedrich (1970), Mittheilungen aus dem Saterlande, im Jahre 1846 gesammelt, Bd. 3, Anhang, schabloniert, Fryske Akademy Nr. 372, Ljouwert (Leeuwarden).

Remmers, A. (1997), Plattdeutsch in Ostfriesland, Die Mundart von Moormerland-Warsingsfehn, Sollermann, Leer.

Siebs, Theodor (19012), Geschichte der friesischen Sprache in: Hermann Paul, Grundriss der germanischen Philologie Bd. 1, S. 1152-1464, Strassburg.

Tiersma, Pieter Meijes (19992), Frisian Reference Grammar, Fryske Akademy Nr. 886, Ljouwert (Leeuwarden), ISBN 90-6171-886-4.

Visser, Willem (1988), Wêrom’t progressive assimilaasje yn it Frysk net bestiet in: Tydskrift foar Fryske Taalkunde, Jg. 4, S. 1-20.

Wahrig, Gerhard (1975), Deutsches Wörterbuch, Bertelsmann Lexikon-Verlag, Gütersloh.

[1] The transcriptions apply an adapted version of the 1960 spelling, in which vowel length is

consequently represented by single and double writing and ì, ù are more open than i, u (cf. Kramer 1992:24-25).

Consonants are expressed as in German, be it that occlusives are less aspirated, the initial s is voiceless, sch represents s + voiceless uvular fricative [sx], as well as sp and st contain only labial and dental components respectively [sp], [st]. Apart from that, occasionally deviating pronunciation or change of consonants by assimilation is indicated by upper case ^. Also voiced fricative [(] is represented by g^ and bilabial [w] by w^, whereas voicing products k^, p^, l^ indicate [l], [b] and alveolar l [»] (instead of in Sfr. usually dental l) respectively, whereas r^ indicates alveolar [r] reduced to about [c].

The value of n^ (also transcribed as ñ) depends on the following consonant: before gutturals it represents ng [õ] and before labials m, whereas before f and s it indicates total loss of n with nasalisation of the preceding vowel. Although e.g. p^ and b are phonetically equal, they have a quite different evolutionary history. In order to keep a clear view they are regarded separately here. See also paragraph 2.9.

A preceding acute ‘ indicates strongly stressed syllables. Later added information is presented between { } and remarks of the interviewer between [ ].

Intervals are denoted by “.” (end of record), “,” (comma; always real speech interval, apart from the first few transcriptions not regarded here: B3, B15, B21 and the first half of B10) and “..” (hesitation). Quotations are chopped off in order to fill a line.

[2] Text samples are marked with letter B, record number and dialect sign (R = Ramsloh, U = Utende/Strücklingen, S = Scharrel), e.g. B119U. Most speakers were born between about 1880 and 1920; about 9% was spoken by women.

For later comparison follow the marks of the recordings used here: B10R B12S B25RS B26S B29S B30S B34U B53U B54U B80S B82S B83S B84U B85U B86U B87U B88U B89S B90S B91S B92S B93S B94S B95S B96S B97R B98R B99R B100R B101R B102RS B103U B104U B105U B106U B107U B108U B109U B110U B111U B112U B113U B114U B115U B116U B117U B118U B119U B120U B121U B122U B123U B126U B127U B128S B129S B130U B131U B132S B133S B134S B135R B136U B137U B138R B139R B140R B141R B143U B144R B145R B146R B147R B148S B149S B14RS B150S B151S B152S B155U B156U B157U B158RU B159RU B15S B160S B161S B162S B163U B164U B165S B166S B167U B168U B169U B170R B171R B172S B173R B174R B177U B178S B179S B180S B181U B182U B183S B184S B185S B186S B187S B188S B189S B190S B191S B192S B193US B194S B195S B196S B197S B198S B199S B200S B201S B202RS B203S B204S B205R B206S B207S B208S B209S B210S B211S B212S B213S B214S.

[3] Visser (1988:1) succeeded in explaining all cases of apparent progressive assimilation in West Frisian in another way. Such an analysis is not tried here. The results therefore apply to all cases in which initial changes occur.

[4] Including up to approximately 20% representatives of the verbal form däd 'does' (583 times infinitive dwoo!), that are considered here to behave in the same way with assimilation.

[5] In the recordings of the Sater Frisian speakers occasionally other languages appear. According to the words for 'to say' 96% is Sater Frisian (kweede), 3% is High German (zaagen) and 0,4% is Low German (zäggen).

[6] A word-internal effect of dentals in the same direction perhaps is shown by the rare form gùnt ‘goes’ (fig. 29: 12x against 486x the usual gùngt).

~ Assimil10tekst.wpd - 21th Nov. 2008