Re: CHAT: Dutch dictionary recommendations?

En réponse à Joe <joe@...>:

>
> Well, the Cassells one looks good, if a bit pricy.  But I think dutch
> pluralisation is quite easy.  If it ends in a vowel and some
> consonants(I've
> forgotten which) it's '-s', and the rest are '-en', IIRC.
>
-s after e, r, n and optionally after l. -'s (with the apostrophe) after a, i,
o and u. -en in any other case (and optionally after -l). Note that the -n in -
en is usually silent (Dutch has a limited case of liaison with the n
reappearing in front of a word beginning with a vowel).

Most Dutch plurals are regular following this rule, even for words which have
irregular plurals both in English and German (for instance, "man" has
plural "mannen" - the doubling of the n is regular and only a matter of
spelling -). So you get: bank -> banken, winnaar -> winnaars, auto -> auto's,
actie -> acties, aardappel (potato) -> aardappels or aardappelen (not sure of
the last spelling, but -ellen would make it pronounce [El@] in my opinion).
Most spelling changes are just there because of the spelling rules of Dutch and
are regular (example: taak (task) -> taken, because Dutch "long" vowels are
indicated by a single vowel in open syllables and a double one in closed
syllables. Man -> mannen is the opposite of this rule: a "short" vowel must
always be written as a single vowel in a closed syllable, so double the
consonant after it to make it look closed if necessary).

Dutch has only a few irregular plurals, and they are nothing fancy. Mostly
changes of stressed vowel, but the endings stay regular. For instance: lid
(member) -> leden, stad (town) -> steden, and all nouns ending in -heid (the
equivalent of English suffix -ness) make their plural in -heden.

All in all, once you know the rules to add the endings and the spelling rules,
you know the shape of 98% of the Dutch plurals.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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