Some Linguistic features of Middle Dutch - Part 2
Let us read once more the opening lines of the Beatrijs fragment.
Middle Dutch:
Van dichten comt mi cleine bate
Die liede raden mi dat ict late
Ende minen sin niet en vertare.Modern Dutch
Het dichten geeft mij weinig baat [= voordeel]
De lieden [= mensen] raden mij aan dat ik het laat
En mijn zin [= geest] niet vermoei.
English translation:Writing poetry gives me little gain
People advise me that from it I abstain
And not wear out my brain.
The phrase 'dat ict late' in the second line shows how it was possible to combine different words into one: 'ict' corresponds to modern 'ik 't'. In other words, a reduced form ('t' for 'dat') is appended to an existing word ('ic'). We call this phenomenon enclisis (>link). It is also possible to attach such a reduced form to the beginning of a word as in 'tlicht' (for 'dat licht', which appears later in the Beatrijs manuscript). This is called proclisis (>link). In modern Dutch, we use an apostrophe and separate the reduced form from the main word, e.g. ''t licht'.Note that the 't' in the Middle Dutch 'ict' is a reduced form of 'dat' and not 'het', which is a later development. Likewise, the present-day article 'de' developed from the Middle Dutch 'die': 'Die liede raden mi' › 'De lieden raden mij [aan]'. In modern Dutch, 'die' and 'dat' have become *demonstrative pronouns (English 'this/these' and 'that').
Another typical feature is the so-called double *negative consisting of the construction 'en/ne + niet' (or vice versa). This is a feature that is still alive in many Flemish dialects and in Afrikaans. In modern standard Dutch the 'en/ne' element has disappeared.
Question 11:
Can you find an example of a double negative in the Beatrijs fragment?
Check your answer (>link)
Question 12:
Is the double negative typical of dialects?
Check your answer (>link)
Further down in the Beatrijs manuscript, we encounter the phrase:
Middle Dutch:
Hi haestem te comen daer
Modern Dutch:
Hij haastte zich daar te komen
English translation:He hurried to get there
'Haestem' is another example of enclisis, consisting of 'haeste' + 'hem'. In this example, 'hem' is a reflexive pronoun corresponding to the English 'himself'. In modern Dutch, we use 'zich' instead, a form which was introduced in the seventeenth century.
Click (>link) to continue with the historical overview.
