Archaic Dutch declension

The Dutch language in its modern form does not have grammatical cases, and nouns only have singular and plural forms. Many remnants of former case declinations remain in the Dutch language, but none of them are productive. One exception is the genitive case, which retains a certain productivity in the language.[1] Although in the spoken language the case system was probably in state of collapse as early as the 16th century,[2] cases were still prescribed in the written standard up to 1946/1947. This article describes the system in use until then. For a full description of modern Dutch grammar, see Dutch grammar. See also History of Dutch orthography.

Case usage

The four Dutch cases were the nominative, genitive, dative and accusative. They were still alive and in use in Middle Dutch, but they gradually fell out of use in early modern Dutch. Seventeenth-century grammarians and those that came after them attempted to keep the case system alive, and codified a written standard that included them. This standard was prescriptive—an attempt to influence how people wrote and spoke Dutch rather than to reflect how they already spoke naturally. It included not just the crumbling case system, but also a strict separation between masculine and feminine genders, falling out of use in some dialects as well. Many grammarians of the time attempted to make Dutch more like Latin and Greek, and even included cases such as the ablative and locative which had not existed in any ancestor of Dutch since Proto-Indo-European times.

By the 18th century, the everyday spoken language had lost its case system in most dialects, but it remained present in the written standard. Rules for the use of cases were relaxed in the Marchant spelling of 1934, and were finally abolished in the 1946/1947 spelling reform, along with many other archaic features. After the reform, the use of cases was discouraged, although they were still allowed by the standard. In modern Dutch, they are preserved in certain fixed expressions. They also continue to be used when writers want to make something sound deliberately archaic.

Only the nominative case or the accusative case survives in the modern spoken language (nominativism and accusativism respectively); which case survives depends on the dialect. In dialects with accusativism, the masculine and feminine genders remain distinct; in dialects with nominativism, they are merged. This is because in the older declension, the nominative was the same for the masculine and feminine gender, but the accusative forms differed:

Nominative

In the older standard, the nominative (nominatief or eerste naamval) was used for the following:

Genitive

The genitive (genitief or tweede naamval) was used in the following cases:

Many of these uses are replaced by the preposition van in modern Dutch. A few cases use other prepositions.

The (possessive) genitives of the personal pronouns are replaced by the possessive pronouns.

The possessive form of the genitive is still productive when used with proper names. This form does not resemble the old genitive, which was a full case and had distinctive endings on each word in a phrase. Instead, it is a possessive clitic much like in English, and attaches to the last word in the whole phrase. For example, "Jans auto" (John's car) is productive and in common usage. However in some cases the old form is still productive to evoke a certain style: de generatie der babyboomers or to avoid using van too often: de wensen van de meerderheid der Nederlandse bevolking.[3]

A partitive genitive form of the adjective is still used after words like iets, niets (something, nothing), e.g. iets nieuws (something new).

Gerunds can sometimes still be found in the genitive case in expressions involving tot ... toe: tot vervelens toe, (until boredom set in) tot bloedens toe (until bleeding occurred)

Dative

The dative (datief or derde naamval) was used in the following cases:

In modern Dutch, the dative case is technically still required after the preposition te (to). However this preposition itself has fallen out of use, and is found only in fixed expressions. These expressions tend to keep the original dative form. For example, "ten slotte" (finally), "te allen tijde".[4] It is also used somewhat productively in relation to proper place names, without any case marking. For example, "Het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam" (The National Museum in Amsterdam). Even this is still dated to some degree.

Nouns of action on -ing can still be combined with the feminine form ter: ter herdenking (to commemorate) and enjoy a modicum of productivity: ter wikifiëring (to be wikified) is certainly acceptable Dutch.

Accusative

The accusative (accusatief or vierde naamval) was used in the following cases:

The accusative case was left for objects of transitive verbs and objects of all prepositions except for te. However, as distinctions between the grammatical cases were only weakly felt among speakers of Dutch, the feminine and neuter declensions were identical in the nominative and accusative, and the masculine declension was identical for the accusative and dative, endless confusion reigned.

Articles

Definite article

Singular Plural
Masculine Feminine Neuter All
Nominative de de het ('t) de
Genitive des ('s) der des ('s) der
Dative den (d'n) der den (d'n) den (d'n)
Accusative den (d'n) de het ('t) de

The forms in brackets are shortened forms that were occasionally used. They were somewhat colloquial.

The preposition te contracts with a following definite article: te den → ten, te der → ter. Compare this to German zum, zur.

Indefinite article

Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative een ('n), ene ('ne) een ('n) een ('n)
Genitive eens ('ns) ener eens ('ns)
Dative enen ('nen) ener enen ('nen)
Accusative enen ('nen) een ('n) een ('n)

Because Dutch had many spelling reforms, some forms had different spellings in the past. The stem was formerly spelled een- regardless of the ending, so eenen, eener etc. The modern spelling, given in the table, are written according to the rules of modern Dutch orthography.

The normal form of the masculine nominative singular is een. In certain varieties of non-Standard Dutch such as in Belgium, however, normally the form ene is used.

The forms in brackets are shortened forms that were occasionally used. As with the shortenings of the definite article, these are colloquial.

Nouns

A distinction was made between strong and weak declensions. The weak declension had most cases with the ending -en in the singular, while the strong declension had other endings. This distinction wasn't as important in 19th century standard Dutch as it was in earlier Old and Middle Dutch. The two types were much more distinct in Old and Middle Dutch, but gradually became mixed together. The older strong plural forms disappeared, so that all nouns became weak in the plural. In the singular the opposite happened: the weak declension was replaced with the strong declension in most nouns. The difference was then only relevant for the singular, the plural was the same for all nouns.

The older standards of Dutch maintained a strict separation between the masculine, feminine and neuter gender. While this is not significant in the modern language without cases, it was important in the older standard because the masculine and feminine nouns declined rather differently. Masculine and neuter nouns declined the same, and were usually strong, with some nouns retaining the weak declension. Feminine nouns declined differently, and there was no strong-versus-weak distinction for them.

Because the difference between masculine and feminine was disappearing or had already disappeared in the spoken language, some nouns tended to mix masculine and feminine endings. One will come across fixed expressions such as te zijner tijd (feminine dative singular) alongside destijds (masculine genitive singular). This confusion was largely eliminated when cases were abolished, but on the occasion that cases are used in modern Dutch, this confusion is very frequent in areas where the spoken language has only a single "common" gender. Thus, masculine and feminine case endings, when used nowadays, may be almost interchangeable.

Masculine and neuter nouns

The following declension was used for most masculine and neuter nouns. It had also come to be used for female proper names, but normal feminine nouns used a separate declension, seen further below.

Strong nouns

Singular Plural
Nominative man mannen
Genitive mans mannen
Dative manne/man mannen
Accusative man mannen
Singular Plural
Nominative veld velden
Genitive velds velden
Dative velde/veld velden
Accusative veld velden

Most nouns had -s in the genitive singular. This was extended to -es when it would have caused an awkward-to-pronounce combination of sounds otherwise (huis, gen. sg. huizes), but it was also used occasionally for nouns that didn't require it. If the noun ended with a long vowel, then an apostrophe was included as in modern usage.

The -e of the dative singular was frequently dropped.[5]

Some masculine and neuter nouns became feminine in the dative singular. See below under "mixed nouns".

The plural could end in either -en or -s. A few had plurals in -eren (kind, pl. kinderen). This is the same as in modern Dutch, see Dutch grammar for more details.

Weak nouns

Some nouns retained a weak genitive in the singular, including nouns with a nominative sg. in -e and substantivised adjectives.[6] Examples are mens (man), bode (courier), and dappere ("brave one").

Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative mens mensen bode boden dappere dapperen
Genitive mensen mensen boden boden dapperen dapperen
Dative mense/mens mensen bode boden dappere dapperen
Accusative mens mensen bode boden dappere dapperen

Many of the weak nouns were words for people, including bediende (servant) graaf (count), heer (lord), hertog (duke), knaap (lad), prins (prince), vorst (prince). Hart (heart) belongs to the same group (but see below).

Some relics remain of the weak declension in modern Dutch. The cities of 's-Gravenhage (more commonly Den Haag, The Hague) and 's-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch) both still show the original weak genitive ending in their names. The Christian expression dag des Heren (day of the Lord) also retains it.

Feminine nouns

Feminine nouns had a simpler declension. When separate endings were used, the genitive and dative singular forms would end in -e.[7] Female proper names did not follow this declension, but were declined as strong masculine/neuter nouns instead.

Singular Plural
Nominative vrouw vrouwen
Genitive vrouwe/vrouw vrouwen
Dative vrouwe/vrouw vrouwen
Accusative vrouw vrouwen

Mixed nouns

Some nouns mixed several types of declension. The most common irregularity was a feminine dative singular replacing the masculine or neuter one.

Adjectives

The older standard distinguished between predicative and attributive adjectives, much as the modern standard. It also distinguished definite and indefinite declensions. However, the difference was three-way rather than two-way:

This distinction still exists in modern German. In modern Dutch, the mixed and strong declensions have fallen together, becoming the indefinite declension, while the weak declension remains as the definite declension.

Adjectives ending in -en (e.g. houten, koperen) did not receive any endings, like in modern Dutch.

Weak declension

Singular Plural
Masculine Feminine Neuter All
Nominative de goede man de goede vrouw het goede/goed kind de goede mannen, vrouwen, kinderen
Genitive des goeden mans der goede vrouwe/vrouw des goeden kinds der goede mannen, vrouwen, kinderen
Dative den goeden manne/man der goede vrouwe/vrouw den goeden kinde/kind den goeden mannen, vrouwen, kinderen
Accusative den goeden man de goede vrouw het goede/goed kind de goede mannen, vrouwen, kinderen

Mixed declension

Singular Plural
Masculine Feminine Neuter All
Nominative een goede man een/ene goede vrouw een goed kind vele goede mannen/vrouwen/kinderen
Genitive eens goeden mans ener goede vrouwe/vrouw eens goeden kinds veler goede mannen, vrouwen, kinderen
Dative een/enen goeden manne/man ener goede vrouwe/vrouw een/enen goeden kinde/kind velen goeden mannen, vrouwen, kinderen
Accusative een/enen goeden man een/ene goede vrouw een goed kind vele goede mannen, vrouwen, kinderen

The masculine and feminine endings in -en and -e of the indefinite article were frequently dropped even in written language.[8] However, the endings in -en and -e of een, geen, mijn, uw, zijn, hun, and haar were strictly maintained in government and administrative documents until 1946/7.

Strong declension

Singular Plural
Masculine Feminine Neuter All
Nominative goede man goede vrouw goed kind goede mannen, vrouwen, kinderen
Genitive goeden mans goeder vrouwe/vrouw goeden kinds goeder mannen, vrouwen, kinderen
Dative goeden manne/man goeder vrouwe/vrouw goeden kinde/kind goeden mannen, vrouwen, kinderen
Accusative goeden man goede vrouw goed kind goede mannen

There also was a special vocative form for the neuter singular: Lieve kind (Sweet child). However, this form was not widely accepted, and the nominative was used instead.

Pronouns and determiners

Most pronouns and determiners followed the strong adjective declension. Some pronouns (such as iemand, iets, elkaar) declined as nouns and had only -s in the genitive but no endings otherwise. Those that were irregular in some way are given here.

Personal pronouns

Uniquely, modern Dutch retains the use of cases in the personal pronouns. The older forms were the same as the modern ones, with the modern object form used for both the dative and accusative, and the subject form for the nominative. For the genitive, the possessive determiners (which were fully inflected, see below) were used, but there were also special pronoun forms which used the genitive form of the possessive (ending -er).

An exception was the third-person plural. The standard prescribed that hen was the accusative form, while hun was the dative.

Possessive determiners

The possessive determiners declined like strong adjectives. In modern Dutch, they don't decline at all, except for ons.

Like in modern Dutch, a different declension was used when the possessives were used as nouns. This declension resembled the strong declension of nouns in the singular, but with an extra -e added in many cases. In the plural, the strong adjective declension was used, but the neuter nominative/accusative had only -e, not -en.

Singular Plural
Masculine Feminine Neuter All
Nominative de mijne de mijne het mijne de mijne(n)
Genitive des mijns der mijne des mijns der mijner
Dative den mijne der mijne den mijne den mijnen
Accusative den mijne de mijne het mijne de mijne(n)

Demonstratives

The proximal pronoun deze:

Singular Plural
Masculine Feminine Neuter All
Nominative deze deze dit deze
Genitive dezes dezer dezes dezer
Dative dezen dezer dezen dezen
Accusative dezen deze dit deze

The distal pronoun die:

Singular Plural
Masculine Feminine Neuter All
Nominative die die dat die
Genitive diens dier diens dier
Dative dien dier dien dien
Accusative dien die dat die

The interrogative pronoun wie (who) declined the same way.

Historical overview

Dutch, like many other Indo-European languages, has gradually moved its nominal morphology from synthetic to chiefly analytic. It has retained some vestiges of the original case system, more so than English, but to a much lesser extent than German. In modern Dutch, nouns and articles are no longer inflected for case, although an elaborate case system was used in the written language until the middle of the 20th century. In addition, many surnames, toponyms and set expressions still exhibit fossilised inflected forms of the article and noun.

Middle Ages

In Middle Dutch, a productive case system was still in existence, which was very similar to that of modern German. Given below is the so-called "strong" inflection.[9]
(adjective clein = small, noun worm = worm, daet = deed/action, broot = bread)

Case Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative (sg.) die cleine worm die cleine daet dat cleine broot
Genitive (sg.) des cleins worms der cleiner daet des cleins broots
Dative (sg.) den cleinen worme der cleiner daet den cleinen brode
Accusative (sg.) den cleinen worm die cleine daet dat cleine broot
Nominative (pl.) die cleine worme die cleine dade die cleine brode
Genitive (pl.) der cleiner worme der cleiner dade der cleiner brode
Dative (pl.) den cleinen wormen den cleinen daden den cleinen broden
Accusative (pl.) die clene worme die cleine dade die cleine brode

16th to 18th centuries

It was already observed in the 15th century that there existed no distinction between the nominative and accusative forms of nouns and articles in the northern dialects.[10] From the Renaissance onward, the view that the Dutch language should somehow be 'ennobled' with an extensive case system after the model of Latin was widespread. Hendrik Louwerisz. Spieghel, an influential 16th-century grammarian, tried to reform and standardize the Dutch case system in his book on grammar, Twe-spraack van de Nederduitsche Letterkunst (1584).[11] In particular, Spieghel wanted to create a distinction in grammatical function between two existing forms of the definite article, de and den, having de pertain to subjects and den to objects. (In this system, no distinction was made between masculine and feminine nouns, as was later done; des vrouws, den vrouwe (f) would stand alongside des heers, den here (m).)[12] Another artificial distinction, still in use today, between the plural personal pronouns hun (for the indirect object) and hen (for the direct object) was created by Christiaen van Heule, who wrote the De Nederduytsche spraec-konst ofte tael-beschrijvinghe (printed in 1633).[13] In the same vein, the distinction between masculine and feminine nouns was rigidly maintained, although this distinction was felt only vaguely at best in the northern dialects. (In the dialects of the Southern Netherlands, however, the distinction did indeed exist and is still in existence today.) Celebrated poets such as Joost van den Vondel and Pieter Cornelisz. Hooft often disagreed in assigning gender to nouns, which they arbitrarily based on equivalents in Latin, German, or other languages whenever they saw fit. Their choices were adopted by the grammarian David van Hoogstraten in his Aenmerkingen over de Geslachten der Zelfstandige Naemwoorden[14] (1700); where Vondel and Hooft disagreed, Van Hoogstraten would assign a gender to a noun by his own choice. These "gender lists" were steadily extended, especially by professor Adriaan Kluit (1735-1807), who revised Van Hoogstraten's work. Kluit's list formed the basis of later 19th-and early 20th-century practice.[15]

19th and early 20th centuries

This artificial approach to the Dutch language remained the prevailing practice through the 17th and 18th centuries, but attitudes began to change in the 19th century. The rigidity of the written language was satirized in 1865 by Jacob van Lennep in his De vermakelijke spraakkunst, in which he noticed that the case system was hardly used in the spoken language.[16] The practice of approaching Dutch as if it were a classical, inflecting language comparable to Latin and Greek was gradually abandoned in the 19th century, and it was recognized that word order played a far greater role in defining grammatical relationships. R.A. Kollewijn (1857-1942) advocated radical spelling reforms for the whole of the Dutch language, at a time when a rather extensive case system was maintained in the written language by the De Vries-Te Winkel spelling. The table below shows the conventions of the written language in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Only the "strong" inflection is shown here.[17][18]

Case Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative (sg.) de kleine worm de kleine daad het kleine brood
Genitive (sg.) des kleinen worms der kleine daad des kleinen broods
Dative (sg.) den kleinen worm de kleine daad het kleine brood
Accusative (sg.) den kleinen worm de kleine daad het kleine brood
Nominative (pl.) de kleine wormen de kleine daden de kleine broden
Genitive (pl.) der kleine wormen der kleine daden der kleine broden
Dative (pl.) den kleinen wormen den kleinen daden den kleinen broden
Accusative (pl.) de kleine wormen de kleine daden de kleine broden

Later 20th century to present

Kollewijn's proposals for a much simplified spelling, which included the effective abandonment of the case system, were adopted by Minister of Education Marchant for use at schools in 1934, which meant that the case endings were no longer taught at school. Kollewijn's spelling was officially implemented by the Belgian and Dutch governments in 1946 and 1947 respectively.[19]

Since 1946/1947, only one form is used for all cases, and the only remaining distinction is the one between singular and plural.[20] [21] The -n has been lost in adjective nouns.

Number \ Gender Masculine Feminine Neuter
Singular de kleine worm de kleine daad het kleine brood
Plural de kleine wormen de kleine daden de kleine broden

Numerous remnants of the old system remain in the language, usually on the level of individual idioms, but there are larger issues. One part of the legacy involved the formation of compounds, like bijenkorf (beehive). In modern Dutch the two parts of a compound are typically linked by either -e-, -en- or -s- and historically these linkers descend from the genitive endings of the old case system. Particularly the question when to use -e- or -en- became a source of a plethora of spelling errors, because the system that produced the forms was no longer understood. In 1995 and 2006 spelling changes were adopted that introduced new rules that abandoned any relationship with the historical development of the word.

Sampling

From the Dutch language Wikipedia:

References

  1. ↑ "A cognitive account of the genitive case in present-day Dutch" (PDF). Retrieved Oct 16, 2015.
  2. ↑ E.g. the oldest grammar, Twe Spraack vande Nederduitsche letterkunst (1584), see dbnl already shows the confusion of masculine and feminine gender in the genitive as it quotes: "des heers, vrouws, diers", while at the same time trying to identify 6 cases as in Latin. The focus on Latin grammar would cause later grammarians to insist that "des vrouws" was wrong and to prescribe that it had to be "der vrouw".
  3. ↑ http://www.niederlandistik.uni-oldenburg.de/germanicsandwich2010/download/Scott_genitive.pdf
  4. ↑ http://taaladvies.net/taal/advies/vraag/783/
  5. ↑ See Bilderdijk (1826), p. 94; Brill (1871), p. 229.
  6. ↑ See Bilderdijk (1826), p. 95, 97; Brill (1871), p. 174, 177.
  7. ↑ See Bilderdijk (1826), p. 93 (forms with -e); Brill (1871), p. 229 (no separate endings).
  8. ↑ Bilderdijk (1826), p. 94.
  9. ↑ For the "weak" inflection, see the corresponding section in Middle Dutch.
  10. ↑ Exercitium puerorum, 1485. Het verhaal van een taal, p. 72.
  11. ↑ The authorship is not entirely certain; the book originated in the circles of the rederijkerskamer "In Liefde bloeyende" in Amsterdam.
  12. ↑ E. Rijpma and F.G. Schuringa, Nederlandsche spraakkunst, fifth edition, The Hague 1930, p. 128
  13. ↑ Van Heule invented an analogous distinction for the singular hum and hem, which did not slip into common practice, where hem has always been used for both cases. Het verhaal van een taal, p. 79.
  14. ↑ The title means: Comments on the Genders of the Nouns
  15. ↑ E. Rijpma and F.G. Schuringa, Nederlandsche spraakkunst, fifth edition, The Hague 1930, p. 129
  16. ↑ Het verhaal van een taal, pp. 104-105
  17. ↑ The "weak" inflection (which mostly, but not exclusively, consists of masculine nouns) differs only in having a genitive singular ending in -en instead of -(e)s: de vorst (= monarch, prince), des vorsten.
  18. ↑ Nouns ending with a sibilant had a genitive in -es: het huis, des huizes.
  19. ↑ Officially, the inflected forms of adjectives in -n remained optional, but they were only rarely used in publications after 1946 and quickly disappeared over the next decennium or so.
  20. ↑ The plural form of the genitive case, though by no means common, is still sometimes used in formal language, typically to give an expression an archaic, more solemn ring: het rijk der Azteken, "the empire of the Aztecs".
    A remnant of the genitive case also appears when a relation is expressed between proper names in adjectival slots and their associated subjects, for example Peters fiets ("Peter's bicycle"). In general, only names can be used in such genitive case constructions; where a subject is desired as the head of a clause, Dutch prefers to place the subject as head and add a prepositional phrase as complement (much more so than in English) by way of the preposition "van" (of) which denotes possessiveness. For example, the Dutch word group het eind van de dag can be rendered in English as transliteratively "the end of the day" or, alternatively, "the day's end". However, to render the latter equivalent in Dutch as "des dages eind" would be to invoke an extremely archaic tone. The reasons for this are historical and manifold.
  21. ↑ It has to be noted that although modern Dutch no longer has a productive case system, many fossilized expressions have preserved ancient case endings. Examples are in genen dele, "not at all" (litt: "in no part"), and terzelfdertijd, "at the same time" (both old dative forms).

Bibliography

External links

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