Earlier research has shown that established authors can be distinguished by measuring specific properties of their writings, their stylome as it were. Here, we examine writings of less experienced authors. We succeed in distinguishing between these authors with a very high probability, which implies that a stylome exists even in the general population. However, the number of traits needed for so successful a distinction is an order of magnitude larger than assumed so far. Furthermore, traits referring to syntactic patterns prove less distinctive than traits referring to vocabulary, but much more distinctive than expected on the basis of current generativist theories of language learning.

The plural suffix -en (noot+en, 'nuts') is pronounced differently by speakers coming from different regions of the Netherlands. In this study, we compared the pronunciation of the plural suffix -en in phrases (noot+en kraken, 'to crack nuts') with linking en in compounds (noot+en+kroker, 'nutcracker'), because some claim that both are similar (Schreuder, Neijt, van der Weide, & Baayen, 1998), whereas others claim that they are not (Verkuyl, 2007). The pronunciations of 109 participants coming from five regions of the Netherlands were therefore compared in a picture naming task. A systematic relation between the pronunciations of plural -en and linking en was detected: Speakers from the Northern and Eastern regions produced [(upside-down e)n] most often for both the linking elements and plural endings, while speakers from the Middle and Western regions produced [upside-down e] most often for both. For speakers from the Southern region, we found no preference to pronounce either [upside-down e] or [upside-down e n] in compounds or phrases. It is concluded that Dutch speakers often do not distinguish plural -en from linking en in their speech production. Possibly, speakers of Dutch consider linking en and plural -en as the same morpheme.

The Dutch suffix -heid, like -ness in English, forms abstract nouns from adjectives. In this paper, we explore the hypothesis that -heid gives rise to two kinds o f abstract nouns: on the one hand, nouns referring to concepts, and on the other hand, nouns referring to states of affairs. An examination of a corpus of newspaper Dutch reveals that the referential function of -heid is typical for the low est-frequency words. , most o f which are neol ogisms. Conversely, its conceptual function is found predominantly among the highest-frequency words. Detailed investigations o f the use o f these two sorts o f words in context showed that the high-frequency words tend to be less well anchored in their context than the low-frequency words, and that they pattern more as independent units. Our data argue against the view that productive word formation goes hand in hand with the absence o f any storage o f full forms in the mental lexicon. Instead, we claim that highfrequency formations with the productive suffix -heid are available in the mental lexicon, whereas low-frequency words and neologisms are produced and understood by rule.

Hoewel de spelling van Nederlandse verledentijdsvormen van zwakke werkwoorden algemeen als eenvoudig wordt beschouwd (ze zijn immers klankzuiver) maken zelfs universiteitsstudenten opvallend veel fouten bij de keuze tussen de uitgangen -te en -de. Voor een deel zijn die fouten ‘natuurlijk’ in die zin dat ze het gevolg zijn van de werking van frequentie en analogie. Anderzijds stellen we vast dat Nederlanders veel meer fouten maken dan Vlamingen, althans als de stam op een coronale fricatief eindigt (s, z, f, v). Aangezien de Nederlandse proefpersonen de ‘regel’ (het ezelsbruggetje ’t kofschip) beter lijken te beheersen dan de Vlamingen, moet de verklaring voor het verschil gezocht worden in een klankverandering die zich wel in Nederland maar niet of nauwelijks in Vlaanderen voordoet, de verstemlozing van de fricatieven. Het spellingprobleem vraagt om didactische maatregelen en/of politieke: het kan wellicht grotendeels worden opgelost door de spellingregels een weinig aan te passen

No abstract