Middle Dutch

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Template:Short description Template:Infobox language

Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or Template:Circa,<ref>Klaas van Berkel, Albert van Helden, Lodewijk Palm (eds.): A History of Science in the Netherlands: Survey, Themes and Reference, 1999, p. xvi: "Linguists usually distinguish between Old Dutch (c. 700–c. 1150), Middle Dutch (c. 1150–c. 1550), and Modern Dutch (after 1550)."</ref> there was no overarching standard language, but all dialects were mutually intelligible. During that period, a rich Medieval Dutch literature developed, which had not yet existed during Old Dutch. The various literary works of the time are often very readable for speakers of Modern Dutch since Dutch is a rather conservative language.Template:Fact

Phonology

Differences with Old Dutch

Several phonological changes occurred leading up to the Middle Dutch period.

Consonants

The consonants of Middle Dutch differed little from those of Old Dutch. The most prominent change is the loss of dental fricatives. In addition the sound Template:IPA was phonemicised during this period, judging from loanwords that retain Template:IPA to this day.

For descriptions of the sounds and definitions of the terms, follow the links on the headings.

Middle Dutch consonant phonemes
Labial Dental/
Alveolar 		Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Plosive Template:Small Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Template:Small Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Fricative Template:Small Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Template:Small Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Approximant Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Trill Template:IPA link

Notes:

Vowels

Most notable in the Middle Dutch vowel system, when compared to Old Dutch, is the appearance of phonemic rounded front vowels, and the merger of all unstressed short vowels.

Short vowels

Middle Dutch short vowels
Front
unrounded 		Front
rounded 		Central Back
Close Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Mid Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Open Template:IPA link

Long vowels and diphthongs

Long vowels and diphthongs cannot be clearly distinguished in Middle Dutch, as many long vowels had or developed a diphthongal quality, while existing diphthongs could also develop into monophthongs. Sometimes, this occurred only in restricted dialects, other developments were widespread.

Middle Dutch long vowels
Front
unr. 		Front
rnd. 		Back
Close Template:IPA link Template:IPA link (Template:IPA link)
Close-opening Template:IPA (Template:IPA) Template:IPA
Mid-opening Template:IPA (Template:IPA) Template:IPA
Mid Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Open Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Closing Template:IPA (Template:IPA) Template:IPA
  • The rounded front vowels in brackets only occurred in the eastern dialects, where umlaut of long vowels and diphthongs occurred.
  • The rounded back vowel Template:IPA only occurred in the Limburgish dialects.

Many details of the exact phonetics are uncertain, and seemed to have differed by dialect. The overall system is clear, however, as almost all the vowels remain distinct in modern Limburgish: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA appear in modern Limburgish as Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA respectively.

The vowels Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA developed from Old Dutch opening diphthongs, but their exact character in Middle Dutch is unclear. The following can be said:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The vowels Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA, termed "sharp-long" and denoted with a circumflex ê ô, developed from Old Dutch long vowels. The opening diphthong pronunciation was probably widespread, and perhaps once universal, as it is nowadays still found in both West Flemish and in Limburgish, at opposite ends of the Middle Dutch language area. In the general area in between, including standard Dutch, the vowels merged with the "soft-long" vowels during the early modern Dutch period.

The vowels Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA, termed "soft-long" and denoted with a macron ē ō, developed through the lengthening of Old Dutch short vowels in open syllables, but also frequently before Template:IPA. They were simple monophthongs in all Middle Dutch dialects, with the exception of western Flanders where Template:IPA later developed into Template:IPA. They might have been close-mid but also perhaps open-mid Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA, as in modern Limburgish.

Bruce Donaldson argues that it is possible that, contrary to the widespread IPA transcription Template:IPA, the outcome of the merger between the "sharp-long" and "soft-long" mid vowels has never been monophthongal in Hollandic dialects; instead, the two series have merged into narrow closing diphthongs Template:IPA. This would mean that the original Template:IPA diphthongs from which the sharp-long vowels come have never been monophthongized in that area and words like steen Template:IPA 'stone' and boom Template:IPA 'tree' have always contained diphthongs in Hollandic, as the Standard German and Limburgish cognates Stein Template:IPA, stein Template:IPA, Baum Template:IPA and boum Template:IPA do, with the difference lying in quality.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Furthermore, speakers with the Polder Dutch shift nowadays pronounce steen and boom almost indistinguishably from the Limburgish cognates, as Template:IPA and Template:IPA.

There were two open vowels, with "sharp-long" â developed from the Old Dutch long ā, and "soft-long" ā being the result of lengthening. These two vowels were distinguished only in Limburgish and Low Rhenish at the eastern end, and in western Flemish and coastal Hollandic on the western end. The relative backness of the two vowels was opposite in the two areas that distinguished them.

The closing diphthong Template:IPA remained from the corresponding Old Dutch diphthong. It occurred primarily in umlauting environments, with Template:IPA appearing otherwise. Some dialects, particularly further west, had Template:IPA in all environments (thus cleene next to cleine). Limburgish preserved the diphthong wherever it was preserved in High German.

The closing diphthong Template:IPA has two different origins. In the vast majority of the Middle Dutch area, it developed through l-vocalization from older Template:IPA and Template:IPA followed by a dental consonant. In the eastern area, Limburg in particular, it was a remnant of the older diphthong as in High German, which had developed into Template:IPA elsewhere. L-vocalization occurred only in the modern period in Limburgish, and the distinction between Template:IPA and Template:IPA was preserved, being reflected as ów and aa respectively.

Prosody

In Limburgish, pitch accent (known in Dutch dialectology as the distinction between Template:Lang 'push tone' and Template:Lang 'dragging tone') was phonemicized at the beginning of the Middle Dutch period. It causes pairs like Template:Lang Template:IPA 'legs' vs. Template:Lang Template:IPA 'leg' to be distinguished by tone (and, secondarily, length, since the push tone shortens the entire syllable). This is also true of Central Franconian, spoken to the southeast.<ref name="boersma2017">Template:Cite book</ref>

Changes during the Middle Dutch period

Phonological changes that occurred during Middle Dutch:

  • Template:IPA > Template:IPA, Template:IPA > Template:IPA. This eliminated the sound Template:IPA from the language altogether.
  • Template:IPA > Template:IPA (spelled Template:Angbr or later Template:Angbr). It is unclear when this change happened, as the spelling does not seem to differentiate the two sounds (that is, Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr could both represent either sound).
  • Template:IPA > Template:IPA before Template:IPA plus another consonant, merging with original Old Dutch Template:IPA (< Proto-Germanic Template:IPA). E.g. ende > einde, pensen > peinsen (from Old French penser). This change is found sporadically in Old Dutch already, but becomes more frequent in some Middle Dutch areas.
  • Epenthesis of Template:IPA in various clusters of sonorants. E.g. donre > donder, solre > solder, bunre > bunder. In modern Dutch, this change has become grammaticalised for the -er (comparative, agent noun) suffix when attached to a word ending in -r.
  • Shortening of geminate consonants, e.g. for bidden Template:IPA > Template:IPA, which reintroduces stressed light syllables in polysyllabic words.
  • Early diphthongization of long high vowels: Template:IPA > Template:IPA and Template:IPA > Template:IPA except before Template:IPA and Template:IPA, probably beginning around the 14th century.
    • The diphthongal quality of these vowels became stronger over time, and eventually the former merged with Template:IPA ei. But the diphthongal pronunciation was still perceived as unrefined and 'southern' by educated speakers in the sixteenth century, showing that the change had not yet spread to all areas and layers of Dutch society by that time. Similarly, the onset of Template:IPA eventually became as low as Template:IPA, becoming the rounded counterpart of Template:IPA.
    • Notably, this diphthongization parallels the mutation of long high vowels in the Great Vowel Shift of Late Middle English and Early New High German. However, those languages lowered previous Template:IPA all the way to Template:IPA. In Modern Dutch, many speakers from the Randstad region exhibit parallel lowering to Template:IPA from the conservative Template:IPA (see Polder Dutch).
  • Following the previous change, monophthongization of opening diphthongs: Template:IPA > Template:IPA, Template:IPA > Template:IPA. The result might have also been a short vowel (as in most Dutch dialects today), but they are known to have remained long at least before Template:IPA. As the tense Template:IPA often feature a schwa offglide before Template:IPA in contemporary Northern Dutch, it is possible that those dialects have never monophthongized Template:IPA and Template:IPA in that position; instead, they became mere allophones of Template:IPA and Template:IPA before Template:IPA.
  • Beginning in late Middle Dutch and continuing into the early Modern Dutch period, schwa Template:IPA was slowly lost word-finally and in some other unstressed syllables: vrouwe > vrouw, hevet > heeft. This did not apply consistently however, and sometimes both forms continued to exist side by side, such as mate and maat.
    • Word-final schwa was restored in the past singular of weak verbs, to avoid homophony with the present third-person singular because of word-final devoicing. However, it was lost in all irregular weak verbs, in which this homophony was not an issue: irregular dachte > dacht (present tense denkt), but regular opende did not become *Template:Lang Template:IPA because it would become indistinguishable from opent.
  • During the 15th century at the earliest, Template:IPATemplate:Citation needed begins to disappear when between a non-short vowel and a schwa.
    • The actual outcome of this change differed between dialects. In the more northern varieties and in Holland, the Template:IPA was simply lost, along with any schwa that followed it: Template:Lang > lui, lade > la, mede > mee. In the southeast, intervocalic Template:IPA instead often became Template:IPA: mede > meej.
    • The change was not applied consistently, and even in modern Dutch today many words have been retained in both forms. In some cases the forms with lost Template:IPA were perceived as uneducated and disappeared again, such as in Nederland and neer, both from neder (the form Neerland does exist, but is rather archaic in modern Dutch).

Dialects

Middle Dutch was not a single homogeneous language. The language differed by area, with different areas having a different pronunciation and often using different vocabulary. The dialect areas were affected by political boundaries. The sphere of political influence of a certain ruler also created a sphere of linguistic influence, with the language within the area becoming more homogeneous. Following, more or less, the political divisions of the time, several large dialect groups can be distinguished. However, the borders between them were not strong, and a dialect continuum existed between them, with spoken varieties near the edges of each dialect area showing more features of the neighbouring areas.

Middle Dutch has four major dialects groups:<ref>Colette M. van Kerckvoorde: An Introduction to Middle Dutch. Berlin and New York, 1993, p. 1</ref>

  1. Flemish in Flanders and Zeeuws in Zeeland,
  2. Brabantic in Brussels, Leuven, Antwerp, Mechelen, Breda,
  3. Hollandic in the county of Holland,
  4. Limburgic in the East.

Flemish, Brabantic and Hollandic are known as West Franconian, while Limburgic is known as East Franconian (not to be confused with the High German dialect East Franconian).

In a finer classification there are:<ref>Adolphe van Loey, Altniederländisch und Mittelniederländisch, in: Ludwig Erich Schmitt (ed.), Kurzer Grundriß der germanischen Philologie bis 1500: Band 1: Sprachgeschichte, Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin, 1970, p. 253ff., here p. 255f.</ref>

  • Flemish
    • West Flemish
    • East Flemish
  • Brabantic
    • West Brabantic
    • East Brabantic
  • Hollandic
  • Utrechts
  • Limburgic

Brabantian

Brabantian was spoken primarily in the Duchy of Brabant. It was an influential dialect during most of the Middle Ages, during the so-called "Brabantian expansion" in which the influence of Brabant was extended outwards into other areas. Compared to the other dialects, Brabantian was a kind of "middle ground" between the coastal areas on one hand, and the Rhineland and Limburg on the other. Brabantian Middle Dutch has the following characteristics compared to other dialects:

Flemish

Flemish, consisting today of West and East Flemish and Zeelandic, was spoken in the County of Flanders, northern parts of the County of Artois and areas around the towns of Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer. Though due to their intermediary position between West Flemish and Brabantian, the East Flemish dialects have also been grouped with the latter.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Flemish had been influential during the earlier Middle Ages (the "Flemish expansion") but lost prestige to the neighbouring Brabantian in the 13th century. Its characteristics are:

Hollandic

Hollandic was spoken in the County of Holland. It was less influential during most of the Middle Ages but became more so in the 16th century during the "Hollandic expansion", during which the Eighty Years' War took place in the south. It shows the following properties:

Limburgish

Limburgish was spoken by the people in the provinces of modern Dutch and Belgian Limburg. It was not clearly tied to one political area, instead being divided among various areas, including the Duchy of Limburg (which was south of modern Limburg). It was also the most divergent of the dialects.

Kleverlandish

Template:Expand section Kleverlandish ("Kleverlands") was spoken around the area of the Duchy of Cleves, around the Lower Rhine. It represented a transitional dialect between Limburgish and Middle Low German.

  • It had an eastern influence, with a more eastern-tinted orthography. Umlaut was a regular grammatical feature.
  • Stronger Middle Low German influence.

Orthography

Middle Dutch was written in the Latin alphabet, which was not designed for writing Middle Dutch so different scribes used different methods of representing the sounds of their language in writing. The traditions of neighbouring scribes and their languages led to a multitude of ways to write Middle Dutch. Consequently, spelling was not standardised but was highly variable and could differ by both time and place as various "trends" in spelling waxed and waned. Furthermore, a word could be found spelled differently in different occurrences within the same text. There was the matter of personal taste, and many writers thought it was more aesthetic to follow French or Latin practice, leading to sometimes rather unusual spellings.

The spelling was generally phonetic, and words were written based on how they were spoken rather than based on underlying phonemes or morphology. Final-obstruent devoicing was reflected in the spelling, and clitic pronouns and articles were frequently joined to the preceding or following word. Scribes wrote in their own dialect, and their spelling reflected the pronunciation of that particular scribe or of some prestige dialect by which the scribe was influenced. The modern Dutch word maagd ("maiden") for example was sometimes written as maghet or Template:Lang, but also meget, magt, maget, magd, and Template:Lang. Some spellings, such as magd, reflect an early tendency to write the underlying phonemic value. However, by and large, spelling was phonetic, which is logical as people usually read texts out loud.

Modern dictionaries tend to represent words in a normalised spelling to form a compromise between the variable spellings on one hand and to represent the sounds of the language consistently. Thus, normalised spellings attempt to be a general or "average" spelling but still being accurate and true to the language.

In Limburgish, pitch accent was not indicated in spelling, a practice followed to this day.

Vowels

The general practice was to write long vowels with a single letter in an open syllable and with two letters in a closed syllable. Which two letters were used varied among texts. Some texts, especially those in the east, do not do so and write long vowels with a single letter in all cases (as is the predominant rule in modern German).

Phoneme Normalised Other spellings Notes
Template:IPA a
Template:IPA e
Template:IPA i j, y
Template:IPA o
Template:IPA u v
Template:IPA e a (rare and early)
Template:IPA a (open)
ae (closed) 		ai (occasionally, in closed syllables) In discussions about pronunciation, originally-long a is represented as â, lengthened a as ā.
Template:IPA e (open)
ee (closed) 		ei (West Flemish) In discussions about pronunciation, written as ē.
Template:IPA e (open)
ee (closed) 		ee (frequently in open syllables, especially in Flanders), Template:Notatypo (occasionally in some dialects) In discussions about pronunciation, written as ê.
Template:IPA ue o, oe, eu (rare), u, uu (both very rare) Template:Angle and Template:Angle are perhaps the most common, but normalisation uses Template:Angle to avoid confusion with Template:IPA. Normalisation generally undoes the umlaut of older Template:IPA, which was only present in the eastern dialects.
Template:IPA i (open)
ij (closed) 		ii (actually graphical variant of ij), Template:Notatypo (rare, usually before Template:IPA)
Template:IPA Template:Notatypo ye (rare), i (fairly rare)
Template:IPA o (open)
oo (closed) 		oe, a (Rhinelandic), oi, oy In discussions about pronunciation, written as ō.
Template:IPA o (open)
oo (closed) 		oe, oi, oy In discussions about pronunciation, written as ô.
Template:IPA oe ou (Flanders), u, ue (both in Limburg), o (before Template:IPA), uo
Template:IPA u (open)
uu (closed) 		ue (usually before Template:IPA), ui, uy Template:IPA only in Limburg.
Template:IPA ei ey Occurs in place of ê in Limburg.
Template:IPA ou au (rare) Occurs in place of ô in Limburg.
Template:IPA au aeu

Consonants

Phoneme Normalised Other spellings Notes
Template:IPA j i, y, ij (very rare)
Template:IPA w uu, u, v
Template:IPA l
Template:IPA r
Template:IPA m
Template:IPA n
Template:IPA p
Template:IPA b
Template:IPA f
Template:IPA v u
Template:IPA t th (occasionally)
Template:IPA d
Template:IPA s
Template:IPA, Template:IPA sch
sc (in some normalisations) 		sk, ssc(h) (medially), s (occasionally)
Template:IPA s z (occasionally)
Template:IPA k (before e, i, y)
c (elsewhere)
qu (representing Template:IPA)
ck (for geminated Template:IPA) 		ch (Flanders, Brabant), k (eastern, in all positions)
Template:IPA ch g, gh (when Template:IPA devoices)
Template:IPA, Template:IPA g
gh (before e, i, y, only in some normalisations)
cg(h) (for geminated Template:IPA)
Template:IPA h

Grammar

Nouns

Middle Dutch nouns inflected for number as well as case. The weakening of unstressed syllables merged many different Old Dutch classes of nominal declension. The result was a general distinction between strong and weak nouns. Eventually even these started to become confused, with the strong and weak endings slowly beginning to merge into a single declension class by the beginning of the modern Dutch period.

Strong nouns

The strong nouns generally originated from the Old Dutch a-stem, i-stem and u-stem inflections. They mostly had a nominative singular with no ending, and a nominative plural in -e or, for some neuter nouns, with no ending. Most strong nouns were masculine or neuter. Feminines in this class were former i-stems, and could lack an ending in the dative singular, a remnant of the late Old Dutch inflection. In some rare occasions, the genitive singular was also endingless. Some nouns ended in -e in the singular also; these were primarily former ja-stems, which were masculine or neuter. A few were former i-stems with short stems. Nouns of this type tended to be drawn into the weak inflection by analogy.

The following table shows the inflection of the masculine noun Template:Wikt-lang "day", feminine Template:Wikt-lang "deed" and neuter Template:Wikt-lang "bread".

Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative, Accusative dach dāge dâet dâde brôot brôot, brôde
Genitive dāechs, dāges dāge dâets, dâdes dâde brôots, brôdes brôde
Dative dāge dāgen dâet, dâde dâden brôde brôden

Weak nouns

Weak nouns were characterised by the ending -en throughout the plural. The singular ended in -e.

The following table shows the inflection of the masculine noun Template:Wikt-lang "bow, arc".

Singular Plural
Nominative, Accusative bōge bōgen
Genitive bōgen bōgen
Dative bōge bōgen

Adjectives

Middle Dutch adjectives inflected according to the gender, case and number of the noun they modified.

The Germanic distinction between strong and weak, or indefinite and definite inflection, was fairly minimal in Middle Dutch, appearing only in the masculine and neuter nominative singular. These forms received an -e ending when a definite word (demonstrative, article) preceded, and had no ending otherwise. Adjectives were uninflected when connected through a copula. Thus, even for feminine nouns, no ending appeared: die vrouwe is goet "the lady is good".

Some adjectives, namely the former ja-stems, had an -e even in the strong and copular form, e.g. die vrouwe is cleine "the lady is small".

Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural
Nominative goet (indef)
goede (defn) 		goede goet (indef)
goede (defn) 		goede
Accusative goeden
Genitive goets goeder goets goeder
Dative goeden goeden goeden

Pronouns

Middle Dutch pronouns differed little from their modern counterparts. The main differences were in the second person with the development of a T-V distinction. The second-person plural pronoun ghi slowly gained use as a respectful second-person singular form. The original singular pronoun du gradually fell out of use during the Middle Dutch period. A new second person plural pronoun was created by contraction of gij/jij and lui ('people') forming gullie/jullie (literally, 'you people').

Singular Plural
1st 2nd 3rd 1st 2nd 3rd
Masc. Fem. Neut.
Nominative ic, icke du hi si het/'t wi ghi si
Accusative mi di hem/hen/'n haer/se ons u hem/hen/'n
Dative haer hem
Genitive mijns dijns sijns harer 'es onser uwer haer/'re

Note: There are several other forms.

Determiners

Definite Article
(die, dat = the)

Grammatical Case Male Female Neuter
Singular
Nominative die die dat
Accusative den
Dative der den
Genitive des des
Plural
Nominative die
Accusative
Dative den
Genitive der

Verbs

Template:Expand section Middle Dutch mostly retained the Old Dutch verb system. Like all Germanic languages, it distinguished strong, weak and preterite-present verbs as the three main inflectional classes. Verbs were inflected in present and past tense, and in three moods: indicative, subjunctive and imperative.

The weakening of unstressed vowels affected the distinction between the indicative and subjunctive moods, which had largely been determined by the vowel of the inflectional suffix in Old Dutch. In Middle Dutch, with all unstressed vowels merging into one, the subjunctive became distinguished from the indicative only in the singular but was identical to it in the plural, and also in the past tense of weak verbs. That led to a gradual decline in the use of the subjunctive, and it has been all but lost entirely in modern Dutch.

Strong verbs

The seven classes of strong verb common to the Germanic languages were retained. The four principal parts were the present tense, first- and third-person singular past tense, remaining past tense, and the past participle.

Class Present Past
1/3 sg 		Past
rest 		Ptcp. Example verbs
1 î ê ē ē Template:Wikt-lang
2 Template:Notatypo, û ô ō ō Template:Wikt-lang, Template:Wikt-lang
3 e, i a o o Template:Wikt-lang, Template:Wikt-lang
4 ē a â ō Template:Wikt-lang
5 ē, i a â ē Template:Wikt-lang, Template:Wikt-lang
6 ā oe oe â Template:Wikt-lang
7 (any) Template:Notatypo Template:Notatypo (any) Template:Wikt-lang

In classes 6 and 7, there was no distinction between the two different vowels of the past tense. In classes 4 and 5, the difference was primarily one of length, since ā and â were not distinguished in most dialects. The difference between ê and ē, and between ô and ō, found in classes 1 and 2, was a bit more robust, but also eventually waned in the development to modern Dutch. Consequently, the distinction was mostly lost. Class 3, which retained a clear distinction that did not rely on vowel length, was levelled in favour of the o of the plural.

In classes with a lengthened vowel in the present, the singular imperative often appears with a short vowel instead, e.g. les, drach. An alternative form, with final -e by analogy with the weak verbs, also occurs.

The eastern dialects occasionally show i in the second- and third-person singular present indicative forms, instead of e. This is a remnant of older i-mutation in these forms. Umlaut is also sometimes found in the past subjunctive in the east.

Infinitive bliven
Gerund blivene
Indicative mood
Present Past
1st sing. blive blêef
2nd sing. blijfs, blives blēefs, blēves
3rd sing. blijft, blivet blêef
1st plur. bliven blēven
2nd plur. blijft, blivet blēeft, blēvet
3rd plur. bliven blēven
Subjunctive mood
Present Past
1st sing. blive blēve
2nd sing. blijfs, blives blēefs, blēves
3rd sing. blive blēve
1st plur. bliven blēven
2nd plur. blijft, blivet blēeft, blēvet
3rd plur. bliven blēven
Imperative mood
Sing. blijf, blive
Plur. blijft, blivet
Participle
blivende geblēven
Infinitive binden
Gerund bindene
Indicative mood
Present Past
1st sing. binde bant
2nd sing. bints, bindes bonts, bondes
3rd sing. bint, bindet bant
1st plur. binden bonden
2nd plur. bint, bindet bont, bondet
3rd plur. binden bonden
Subjunctive mood
Present Past
1st sing. binde bonde
2nd sing. bints, bindes bonts, bondes
3rd sing. binde bonde
1st plur. binden bonden
2nd plur. bint, bindet bont, bondet
3rd plur. binden bonden
Imperative mood
Sing. bint, binde
Plur. bint, bindet
Participle
bindende gebonden
Infinitive drāgen
Gerund drāgene
Indicative mood
Present Past
1st sing. drāge droech
2nd sing. drāechs, drāges droechs, droeges
3rd sing. drāecht, drāget droech
1st plur. drāgen droegen
2nd plur. drāecht, drāget droecht, droeget
3rd plur. drāgen droegen
Subjunctive mood
Present Past
1st sing. drāge droege
2nd sing. drāechs, drāges droechs, droeges
3rd sing. drāge droege
1st plur. drāgen droegen
2nd plur. drāecht, drāget droecht, droeget
3rd plur. drāgen droegen
Imperative mood
Sing. drach, drāge
Plur. drāecht, drāget
Participle
drāgende gedrāgen

Weak verbs

Middle Dutch retained weak verbs as the only productive class of verbs. While Old Dutch still had two different classes of weak verbs (and remnants of a third), this distinction was lost in Middle Dutch with the weakening of unstressed syllables.

The past tense was formed with a suffix -ed-, which generally lost its e through syncope and thus came to be directly attached to the preceding stem. This triggered voicing assimilation, so that t appeared whenever the preceding stem ended in a voiceless consonant. This phenomenon remains in modern Dutch. Unsyncopated forms, which retain the fuller suffix -ed-, are sometimes found, especially with stems ending in a labial or velar consonant.

Some former class 1 weak verbs retained so-called Rückumlaut. These verbs had undergone umlaut in the present tense, but the umlaut-triggering vowel was syncopated in the past tense already in Old Dutch, preventing umlaut from taking hold there. Thus, senden had the first- and third-person singular past tense sande. These verbs tended to be reinterpreted as strong verbs in later Middle Dutch; sande itself gave rise to the modern zond, mirroring strong class 3.

Infinitive māken
Gerund mākene
Indicative mood
Present Past
1st sing. māke māecte
2nd sing. māecs, mākes māectes
3rd sing. māect, māket māecte
1st plur. māken māecten
2nd plur. māect, māket māectet
3rd plur. māken māecten
Subjunctive mood
Present Past
1st sing. māke māecte
2nd sing. māecs, mākes māectes
3rd sing. māke māecte
1st plur. māken māecten
2nd plur. māect, māket māectet
3rd plur. māken māecten
Imperative mood
Sing. māke
Plur. māect, māket
Participle
mākende gemāect, gemāket
Infinitive senden
Gerund sendene
Indicative mood
Present Past
1st sing. sende sende, sande
2nd sing. sents, sendes sendes, sandes
3rd sing. sent, sendet sende, sande
1st plur. senden senden, sanden
2nd plur. sent, sendet sendet, sandet
3rd plur. senden senden, sanden
Subjunctive mood
Present Past
1st sing. sende sende
2nd sing. sents, sendes sendes
3rd sing. sende sende
1st plur. senden senden
2nd plur. sent, sendet sendet
3rd plur. senden senden
Imperative mood
Sing. sende
Plur. sent, sendet
Participle
sendende gesent, gesendet, gesant

Literature

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Notes

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