NETHERLANDIC CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE DEBATE ON LANGUAGE
CHANGE: FROM LAMBERT TEN KATE TO JOSEF VERCOULLIE

Edgar C. Polomé

Interest in language change is based on a long tradition in the Low Countries, going back to Goropius Becanus' very influential though erroneous views on the historico-comparative position of Gothic (1569).¹ Kiliaan, the learned corrector in Plantijn’s printing shop in Antwerp (1558-1607), renovated lexicography by providing accurate dialectal references and introduced a time perspective into these by designating, for example, as vetus sax (oni-cum), an obsolete Low Saxon term.² In the 17th century, Franciscus Junius laid the foundations of comparative Germanic philology with his first edition of the Codex Argenteus (1665) and his posthumously published Etymologicum Anglicum (Van de Velde 1966:130-205). The field was then fully developed by Lambert ten Kate in his Gemeensohap tussen de Gottische Spraeke en de Nederduytsche (Amsterdam, 1710) and in his monumental Aenleiding tot de Kennisse van het verhevene Deel der Nederduitse Sprake (2 volumes; 1500 pages, in 4°; Amsterdam, 1723).³

Though ten Kate is, in many respects, a man of his time, he differs from his fellow grammarians (Moonen, Séwel, and others) in that he stresses the importance of phonology and carefully examines the degree of aperture of Dutch vowels and the point of articulation of the consonants. He also applies his insights on articulatory features to his study of language change and thus anticipates the work of 19th century linguists. He even devises a special phonetic script using both letters and figures as Lepsius or Bremer would do later.⁴

Reacting against the dogmatism of the “grammaire raisonnée” of Port Royal, he adopts an historical orientation in the study of language: Looking for the “lofty” forms, he explores the material diachronically, trying to identify the older stages of the language and to trace the origin of the words. This first work, therefore, contains mainly a list of Gothic terms which he correlates with their assumed Dutch cognates, and a survey of the nominal and verbal inflectional system of Gothic. The latter, perhaps, constitutes his most original contribution, though his description of nominal stems is incomplete, omitting, e.g. the masculine short ja-stems, and failing to consider the masculine i-stems as a separate group, distinct from the masculine a-stems in the singular and from the feminine i-stems in the plural, though they are formally similar.⁵ It is indeed in the verbal conjugation system that he recognized the regularity of vowel alternations, discovering what Jacob Grimm would later call Ablaut.⁶ His classification of the verbs was not yet fully elaborated in his first work, but he developed it into a full-fledged system in his magnum opus, in which he distinguished six classes, each with subclasses, based on Dutch. Sometimes they reflect the Germanic Ablautsreihen or basic subdivisions fairly well, as, for example:

—in which the first subclass reflects the Germanic first class of “strong” verbs; the second and third subclasses, the Germanic second class of “strong” verbs; and the fifth and sixth subclasses, partly at least, the Germanic third class of “strong” verbs. The fourth subclass is a problem, since the verb involved should actually belong to the Germanic fifth class of “strong” verbs, but has apparently shifted to the sixth class in post-medieval Dutch as it did in late Middle High German. Some classes are nothing but a mixture of verbs of various classes, e.g.

Others contain such anomalous verbs as brengen - bracht - gebracht (Class 5), or the verbs with “weak” preterites and “strong” past participles, such as bakken - bakte - gebakken; weven - weefde - geweven (Class 6). Ten Kate has an extra class of “irregular” verbs which he cannot fit into his system: they çorrespond to the so-called “praeterito-praesentia.”⁷

In his analysis of the conjugation he recognizes the important distinction between Gothic and the western Germanic dialects in the second person singular of the preterite of the strong verbs (Aenleiding I, 635, 664; cf. Van de Velde 1966:267). He also neatly subdivides his “first” class (= the “weak” verbs) into three subgroups according to their conjugation in Gothic: (1) dailjan, (2) fastan, (3) salbon, but apparently does not know how to deal properly with the -nan- verbs, which he considers as a passive formation (Gemeenschap 63-5; Aenleiding I, 595-7; cf. Van de Velde 1966:261-2, 287).

In spite of all its shortcomings, the work of ten Kate rather stands out in the 18th century as a unique contribution to the study of “comparative philology” and his classification of Germanic verbs is far ahead of the linguistic methodology of the day: Only the discovery of Sanskrit and the reconstruction of Indo-European will provide a better background to revise and improve ten Kate’s insights into Germanic morphology.

In the 19th century, the Low Countries fully participate in the development of linguistic science that is triggered by the works of several generations of German scholars from Grimm and Bopp to the Neogrammarians, but there is also a continuity in the tradition that ties in with ten Kate’s work. Thus, when J. te Winkel discusses “phonetic laws” in his Inleiding tot de Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Taal (Culemborg: Blom and Olivierse 1904: 156 ff.), he refers to ten Kate’s basic position that “in the treatment of the science of language the laws have to be found in usage” (Aenleiding, Preface, *3v°)—a statement ten Kate further specifies by indicating that “tradition and respectable usage, which form the foundation of the laws, have their roots in many centuries in the past,” (Aenleiding I, 13), but the guide for this usage must be the “Gemeenlandsche Dialect”—not a local dialect, but the recognized educated Gemeinsprache of the country, as it can also be found (be it with slight dialectal divergencies) in the admired authors of the “Golden Age” (17th century).⁸

J. te Winkel, who first wrote his book for the 1889 edition of Paul’s Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, epitomizes the views of his time on language change: Besides the typical Neogrammarian statements on the “logical necessity” of admitting that purely physiological sound changes cannot show any exceptions, and the numerous illustrations of the role of analogy in language change, there are interesting discussions on “economy” and “aesthetics” as motivating factors of sound change. Quoting Georg Curtius and William Dwight Whitney,⁹ te Winkel contemplates the possibility that certain drastic sound changes like those that differentiate Pali from Sanskrit might be ascribable to an economy of effort in articulation, but he finds such an explanation plausible only if it is paralleled by a psychological attitude. This brings him to the recognition of the aesthetic factor: Alveolar r is replaced by velar R in Groningen because it is the prestige form in Holland and therefore thought to be “nicer” (192). Economy seems to be responsible for a number of prothetic and epenthetic vowels, as they reduce the effort necessary to pronounce definite consonant clusters, but “euphony” accounts for hiatus-fillers, elisions, dissimilations, and such. Rather unexpected is the author’s theory of sound symbolism, which he calls klanktypering (137-46) : He ascribes the prevalence of â or ô or i in terms like mân:môn:mîn as to “choice” or “differentiation.” In the case of “choice,” the motivation is either conscious or unconscious, due to physiological, psychological, or social factors, e.g., ô may sound nicer or remind one of synonyms containing an ô or seem to “fit the meaning better.” Te Winkel clearly indicates that he is aware of the speculative nature of this argument, but also points out that it provides an adequate explanation for such exceptions to the diphthongization of u to ui as duvelsch (: duivel ‘devil’) or for such alternations as Gothic plaihan ‘hug’ versus Du. vleien ‘flatter' (143-4). As for differentiation, the qualitative ablaut provides a good example of its function in the inflectional and derivational system. In resorting to sound symbolism as an explanatory device, te Winkel parallels the literary efforts of Multatuli in Holland and of the Symbolists in France. His motivation is, however, based on the difficulty in accounting for dialectal differences to which he constantly refers in this context and of which he was keenly aware as the founder and leader of one of the major centers of dialectal studies in the Netherlands.¹⁰

In the south, at the University of Ghent, Josef Vercoullie, another pioneer of the historico-comparative method was at work, promoting the development of linguistics in Belgium. His contributions were characterized by their terse matter-of-factness: All the essential data were there, but none too much, and in his trenchant brevity he managed to break new ground for Dutch historical grammar and etymology. His Schets eener historische Grammatica der Nederlandse Taal (1892) contains a number of valuable theoretical comments on the nature and function of accentuation, on inflections, and other topics, tying in with his more elaborate Algemeene Inleiding tot de Taalkunde (1892). In the third edition (1907), Vercoullie added two chapters on syntax and word function, using Old Saxon, Middle Dutch, and other material, such as the Old Low Franconian psalms and glosses, to illustrate historical developments. There were new explanations of the diminutive suffix, of the vowel in the preterite of the originally reduplicated forms, of the difference between the Dutch tense and lax vowels, of the progressive prevalence of the accusative in the Netherlandic dialects, and several more items in phonology, morphology, and syntax. With this work, Vercoullie actually provided the first coherent synthesis of the diachronic development of Dutch as well as a sound foundation for any further work on Netherlandic historical grammar.¹¹ His etymological dictionary (1890) performed a similar function for the lexicon: It situated the Dutch vocabulary in its Germanic and Indo-European background by supplying valuable lists of correspondences within each relevant area of prehistoric contact and within each original wider speech community, contrasting again with Franck’s parallel work, which was much less laconic, but at the same time somewhat less informative as it focused on Standard Dutch (Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands), whereas Vercoullie would include a number of typically southern terms as well as some archaisms.¹²

The Introduction to Linguistics, which was reprinted and revised three times from the late 19th century till the early twenties, is the work of a disciple of the Neogrammarians, who flatly states almost half a century after the decisive year 1876 that “no new materials have been brought forward, nor new basic principles established, for even the discovery of Tocharian ... has not modified the prevailing linguistic views”—a statement that entails the pessimistic conclusion: “Henceforth we shall have to be satisfied with a more attentive study of details and with the drawing of conclusions from the recognized principles” (Inleiding, 3rd ed. Ghent: Vanderpoorten 1922:163). As regards language change, he distinguishes, like te Winkel, a number of internal causes such as the principle of economy, which he calls gemakzucht (literally: ‘longing for easiness'), and the ‘trend towards uniformity' (streven naar eenvormigheid). To the former he ascribes the change of dental before t to s in Germanic, e.g. in wist ‘knew,’ moest ‘must,’ as well as the elimination of s in various environments in several languages, e.g. by change into initial aspiration in Greek; through rhotacism intervocalically in Latin and most Germanic dialects; by loss with compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel in Latin before -d- (as in nīdus ‘nest’), etc. (Inleiding,9). Assimilation, dissimilation, and such processes are also assigned to the same motivation, whereas the leveling trend accounts for analogy as well as folk-etymology (as in sparrow-grass for asparagus). Among the external causes of sound change he lists: (1) prestige forms used by educated people who make the spoken forms correspond to the written standard or preserve inherited terms and phrases “artificially,” (2) renewal through the dialects, (3) influence of foreign languages (Inleiding, 18).

It would be rather tedious to survey the details of his view on the origin and nature of language (Inleiding, 96-8): The picture that emerges from his discussion of the problem is an evolutive conception of language as a living organism in keeping with the Neogrammarian views, but Vercoullie also stresses the communicative function of language as a social institution. Though he brought little that was new, his standing merit remains to have paved the way for the development of linguistics in Belgium, just as te Winkel did in the Netherlands.¹³

NOTES

1.Becanus doubted whether the limited Gothic materials he had at his disposal actually reflected the language of the Goths: he considered Gothic as a “Mischsprache” with a strong Greek and Latin component (Van de Velde 1966:24-35).

2.The significance of the work of Kiliaan has long been recognized (cf., e.g. De Vooys 1936:72-3, Bakker-Dibbets 1977:210-15). Since the basic study of A. Kluyver (Proeve eener critiek op het woordenboek van Kiliaan. The Hague, 1884) and the extensive survey of archaisms by J. Jacobs (De verouderde woorden bij Kiliaan.Ghent, 1899) numerous articles by G. de Smet, F. Claes, and others have thrown new light on Kiliaan’s information and reliability. The third edition of his dictionary has been republished recently by F. Claes (Kiliaans Etymologioum van 1599, opnieuw uitgegeven met een inleiding. The Hague, 1972).

3.The importance of ten Kate in the development of Netherlands linguistics has been repeatedly emphasized in the Low Countries (cf. the monographs of Van der Hoeven 1896 and Rompelman 1952; the detailed analysis of ten Kate’s contribution to Gothic studies in Van de Velde 1966:211-88; the histories of Netherlandic linguistics, e.g. De Vooys 1936:130-2; Bakker and Dibbits 1977:67, 72-3, 75-6, 103-5; etc.). Recently, G. E. Booij devoted a paper to “Lambert ten Kate als voorloper [precursor] van de TG-grammatica” (Spektator 1 1971-2:74-8; with a rejoinder by T. van der Geester, ibid. 160-1).

4.Using A. Moonen’s Nederduitsohe Spraekkunst (2nd ed., Amsterdam, 1719), W. Séwel’s Nederduytsehe spraakkonst (Amsterdam, 1708); A. Verwer’s Linguae belgioae idea grammatica ... (Amsterdam, 1707); and other sources such as the older works of Joos Lambrecht’s Néderlandsche spellijnghe (Ghent, 1550) or Pontus de Heuiter’s Nederduitse orthographie (Antwerp, 1581), Van der Hoeven (1896:56-118) provides a thorough analysis of ten Kate’s first monograph on phonetics which he publishes from the Amsterdam manuscript (1699) and compares with the earlier and contemporary works of Petrus Montanus (Spreeekonst. Delft, 1635), John Wallis (De loquela, sive sonorum formatione. London, 1653), and Johannes Conradus Amman (Dissertatio de Loquela. Haarlem, 1692). Considerable work has been done since then on early Dutch “phonologies” and grammatical works, in particular by L.P.H. Eijkman, C.G.N. De Vooys, W.J.H. Caron, W. Hellinga, and others (cf. e.g. Van Haeringen 1954:35-6, 42-3, 47-8; Hellinga 1968 [reprint of De Opbouw van de Algemeen Besohaafde Uitspraak van het Nederlands (1-361)], passim; Caron 1972:118-22, 135-7, 150-3; etc.).

5.Thus, the masculine i-stems hups ‘hip,’ striks ‘stroke, line,’ and staps (written stads) ‘place,’ are listed among the masculine nomina substantiva “ending in -s” (Gerneenschap, 51), which represent the Germanic a-stems. However, gasts ‘guest' is listed as a feminine in -s on account of its plural gasteis [Gemeenschap, 53; cf. also the entry in the glossary (ibidem, 17): “gast, vreemdeling”— ”gasts F. hospes:”] . See also Van de Velde 1966:246-56.

6.The Gemeenschap tussen de Gottische Spraeke en de Nederduytsche (1710:61-84) gives the following account of the Gothic conjugation system:

The criteria for this classification are the vowel alternations as ten Kate himself points out in his letter to A.V. (= Verwer, his former teacher): “De VERBA vond ik onderscheyden in soorten, waerom ik die gene, welke in de loop hunner veranderinge eenerley rooy hielden, onder eene zelfde Classis bracht; en deze wederom elk in zyn soorte byzonder afdéélde: aldus vind ‘er Uw E, ... sesderley van de tweede (Classis), sevenderley van de derde, tweederley van de Vierde ... welker elk in klank of verwisselinge iets verschilt” (Gerneenschap, 4). See also Van de Velde 1966:261-74.

7.His survey in the Aenleiding is, however, comparative as he adduces parallel Gothic (I, 575-97), Old High German (Tatian and Williram; I, 598-628), Old English (I, 629-52), as well as Contemporary German (I, 653-75), and Icelandic (I, 676-96) material; moreover, he provides a sketch of the situation in Frisian (I, 706-10). His first class (= the “weak” verbs) is characterized by the absence of alternation of root-vowel (“VERBA, die geen verandering van Wortel-VOCAAL gedoogen,” Aenleiding I, 548) and the dental preterite and past participle. The three following classes show regular vowel alternations :

The other three classes are similarly defined on the basis of specific formal criteria, e.g.:

Though he uses the same principle of classification for the other languages, ten Kate does not attempt to make the matrix of their classes correspond exactly with that of Dutch: thus, in Contemporary German, sterben-starb-gestorben represent subgroup 2 of Class 3, which corresponds to Dutch Class 4, insofar as the regular vowel alternation (“Regelmaet van de Vocaalwisseling”) produces a different vowel in the preterite and in the past participle (Aenleiding I, 669). He nevertheless makes important cross-references, pointing out, for example, that in both Old English and Old High German, the complete paradigm of the subjunctive preterite is based on the vocalism of the indicative preterite plural (Aenleiding I, 635). Ten Kate also indicates how classes more specifically defined by formal criteria correlate, e.g. the type OE pencan:pohte (= Class 4; I, 647)-OHG thenkan:thāhta (= Class 4; I, 622) -Gothic pagkjan: pähta (= Class 5; I, 593) ~ Dutch denken:dócht/dacht (= Class 5; I, 567). He is particularly aware of divergences in Icelandic (I, 677-8) and is very specific for each subgroup, e.g. in Class 2, subgroup 4 (I, 684), where he lumps together bera ‘bear, carry’ hverba ‘disappear’ (i.e. hverfa ‘turn around’), bidia ‘pray,’ etc., so that he has to refer to up to three different classes in the cognate languages.

8.J. Knol in Bakker and Dibbets 1977:72-8. In his Aenleiding (I, 13), ten Kate insists that the “Taelwetten (i.e. the phonological and grammatical rules) ... uit het eenstemmige of agtbare Gebruik niet alleen van eene Stad maer een Gemeen-land behooren uitgekozen en opgemaekt te worden.” But his supra-regional “common usage” is largely an ideal standard arrived at by historical-comparative procedure (Van den Berg 1975), and it is definitely not the “Algemeen Beschaafd” whose focus was in Holland (Hellinga 1968:359-60).

9.W. D. Whitney’s Language and its Study (1867), which had been greeted in 1875 as a pioneering work in linguistics by the Dutch Anglicist P. J. Cosijn, was translated from its third edition in two volumes by J. Beckering Vinckes under the title: Taal en Taalstudie. Voorlezingen oyer de gronden der wetenschappelijke taalbeoefening (Haarlem,1877-81). The work was extremely well received in the Netherlands and had a considerable impact on the views of Dutch linguists in the last quarter of the 19th century (cf. Bakker and Dibbets 1977:152).

10.As the main representative of the Neogrammarian approach to dialectology, he directed several dissertations on local dialects at the University of Amsterdam (cf. Bakker and Dibbets 1977:287) and was involved in an extensive survey of the Dutch dialects (Ve Noordneder-landsohe tongvallen. Atlas yan taalhaarten met tekst. Leyden, 1899-1901—left incomplete; cf. criticism by C. G. Kloeke in Grootaers and Kloeke 1926:16-7; further comments by A. Weijnen 1958:6).

11.J. te Winkel’s Inleiding tot de Geschiedenis van de Nederlandsche taal was not a historical grammar of Dutch, but rather an introduction to linguistics and the diachronic development from Indo-European to Dutch within its Germanic context. As a substitute for te Winkel’s Geschichte der niederländischen Sprache, whose second and last edition appeared in Strasbourg in 1901, M. J. Van der Meer produced his Historische Grammatik der niederländischen Sprache. Vol. I. Einleitung und Lautlehre (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1927), which focuses on the external history of Dutch and the diachronic development of its phonology. The first comprehensive historical phonology and morphology was M. Schönfeld’s Historische Grammatica van het Nederlands (Zupphen: Thieme, 1921), to which a section on word- formation was added in the third edition (1932), and which has been kept up-to-date by constant revisions since the fifth edition (1954) by A. van Loey. It completely superseded Vercouillie’s concise introduction, whose fourth and last edition (Ghent: Vanderpoorten, 1922), was a mere reprint of the third (1907). Cf. also Van Haeringen 1954:12-3.

12.A comparison between the third and last edition of Vercoullie’s dictionary (Ghent: Van Rysselberghe and Rombaut, 1925) and the other two Dutch etymological dictionaries (Franck 1912, 1929, with the 1936 Supplement of Van Haeringen and De Vries 1971) shows the important differences in method and approach among the three works (cf. Polomé 1975), as well as the extent of the divergence in their coverage of the vocabulary. Thus, deutel ‘small wedge,’ described by Vercoullie (64) as a derivation, with umlaut (eu = [ϕ]), from the stem of dodde (= lisdodde ‘typha latifolia), a term occurring in Kiliaan with the meaning ‘stalk, peg,’ is not listed either by Franck or by De Vries, who both have entries for dodde. The term appears, however, currently in the standard dictionaries of Modern Dutch, e.g. in Van Dale’s Nieuw Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950:386). Different is the case of sudde ‘marsh, swamp’ (Vercouillie, 341), which is not mentioned in Van Dale, nor in Verschueren' s Modern Woordenboek (Turnhout: Brepols, 1956). It already appears in Killiaan with the label vetus and is accordingly omitted by both Franck and De Vries. Similarly, Vercoullie (191), lists a verb kwelen ‘suffer pain,’ which Van Dale (975) refers to as “regional” and illustrates with a quote from Cats giving evidence of the meaning ‘pine away’. Both Franck (359) and De Vries (372) refer only to Middle Dutch quēlen ‘be in bad shape, pine away’ s.v. kwaal ‘disease, plague, agony’.

13.This paper was read in absentia by Professor Irmengard Rauch at the Houston meeting of the Modern Language Association of America in December 1980. It could not have been written without the most gracious help of Professor Marcel Van Spaandonck of the University of Ghent (Belgium), who provided access to sources unavailable in the U.S. I wish to express my deepest gratitude to both of them for their support and assistance.

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