Hamont dialect

Hamont dialect
Native to	Belgium
Region	Hamont-Achel
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Low Franconian Meuse-Rhenish Limburgish West Limburgish Dommellands[1] Hamont dialect
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None

Hamont dialect or Hamont Limburgish is the city dialect and variant of Limburgish spoken in the Belgian city of Hamont (a part of Hamont-Achel) alongside the Dutch language (with which it is not mutually intelligible).^[1]

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes^[1]

		Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k
	voiced	b	d
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ʃ	x
	voiced	v	z	ʒ	ɣ	f
Trill					ʀ
Approximant		β	l		j

• Voiceless consonants are regressively assimilated.^[2] An example of this is the past tense of regular verbs, where voiceless stops and fricatives are voiced before the past tense morpheme [də].^[2]
• Word-final voiceless consonants are voiced in intervocalic position.^[2]

Vowels

Monophthongs of the Hamont dialect, from Verhoeven (2007:221). Note that the unstressed vowel /ə/ is not shown, and that phonetically, short /y/ is more like [ʏ] than [y]. This is not reflected on this vowel chart.^[3]

Closing diphthongs of the Hamont dialect, from Verhoeven (2007:221)

Centering diphthongs of the Hamont dialect, from Verhoeven (2007:221)

Monophthong phonemes^[4]

	Front				Central		Back
	unrounded		rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i	iː	y	yː			u	uː
Close-mid	ɪ	eː		øː	ʏ			oː
Open-mid	ɛ	ɛː	œ	œː	ə		ɔ	ɔː
Open	æ	æː				aː	ɑ	ɑː

• Verhoeven (2007) does not consider /ɪ/–/eː/ to be a short–long pair.^[5] They have nevertheless been placed in the table in that manner to save space. The same applies to the phonetically mid vowel /ə/, which has been placed in the open-mid column.
• Phonetically, /y/ is near-close near-front [ʏ], /ɪ/ is close-mid front [e], /ʏ/ is close-mid central [ɵ], /æ, æː/ are open front [a, aː], whereas /aː/ is open central [äː].^[3]
• Among the central vowels, /ʏ/ is rounded, whereas /ə, aː/ are unrounded.
  • /ə/ occurs only in unstressed syllables.^[2]
• Among the back vowels, /u, uː, oː, ɔ, ɔː/ are rounded, whereas /ɑ, ɑː/ are unrounded.

Diphthong phonemes^[6]

Starting point		Ending point
		Front				Central	Back
		unrounded		rounded		unrounded	rounded
		short	long	short	long	short	short	long
Close	long unrounded					iːə
	long rounded					yːə uːə
Mid	short	ɛi	ɛiː	œy	œyː		ɔu	ɔuː
	long					oːə ɔːə
Open	short						ɑu	ɑuː

Prosody

Like most other Limburgish dialects, but unlike some other dialects in this area,^[7][8] the prosody of the Hamont dialect has a lexical tone distinction, which is traditionally referred to as sleeptoon ('dragging tone') or Accent 1 and stoottoon ('push tone') or Accent 2.^[9]

References

1. Verhoeven (2007), p. 219.
2. Verhoeven (2007), p. 220.
3. Verhoeven (2007), p. 221.
4. Verhoeven (2007), pp. 220–222.
5. Verhoeven (2007), p. 222.
6. Verhoeven (2007), pp. 221–222.
7. Schouten & Peeters (1996).
8. Heijmans & Gussenhoven (1998), p. 111.
9. Verhoeven (2007), pp. 219, 223.

Bibliography

• Heijmans, Linda; Gussenhoven, Carlos (1998), "The Dutch dialect of Weert" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association 28: 107–112, doi:10.1017/S0025100300006307
• Schouten, Bert; Peeters, Wim (1996), "The Middle High German vowel shift, measured acoustically in Dutch and Belgian Limburg: diphthongization of short vowels.", Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 63: 30–48, JSTOR 40504077
• Verhoeven, Jo (2007), "The Belgian Limburg dialect of Hamont", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37 (2): 219–225, doi:10.1017/S0025100307002940