Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/262

 250 NETHERLANDS (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE) the ch are distinct, as in schip (pronounced near- ly slchip}, ship ; and when at the end or in the middle of a word it sounds almost like a sim- ple s. V has always the flat sound of f. The other consonants are sounded as in English. The vowels are generally sounded as in German, but are distinguished as long when ending a syllable, and as broad when followed by a con- sonant in the same syllable. Thus a in man, man, sounds as in fat ; in laten, to let, as in psalm; and aa is always long : e in bel, bell, as in met; in geven, to give, like a in mate, and ee the same ; but e at the end of words of more than one syllable is very short, or nearly mute : i as in him, or if long as ie in grief: o as in Ger- man von, or if long as in hope, and oo the same : u as in hut, but if long, at the end of a sylla- ble, like the French u or the German u, and uu the same. Of diphthongs and other compound vowel sounds, au is pronounced like ou in house ; ei like i in mine; eu like the German o in Vogel, or the French eu in feu; ie as in grief; oe like oo in hoon ; ou as in out, except that the u sound is more distinguishable ; ui nearly like oy in joy : of aai, the aa is long, and the * scarcely sounded ; of eeuw, the ee is long (Eng. a), and uw follows it like the English uv ; of ooi, oo is long as in hope, and followed by a short i sound ; of ieuw, uw is sounded like uw in German, and the ie is almost mute; oei sounds almost like the French oui. Ai, sound- ed like i in mine, is now out of use, and ei is written instead ; thus, 'Jceizer for kaizer. The double vowel ij must be spoken a little broader than ei. This compound has been substituted in recent times for y, which is still used in for- eign words and generally in writing. A trema or diaeresis is used to denote that succeeding vowels must be pronounced separately; the circumflex accent indicates that the letter d has been omitted, as Neerland for Nederland; the acute accent, that a vowel has to be empha- sized; and the apostrophe is used instead of letters and syllables left out, as ' for des, of the, and 'rtoe for daartoe, thereto. Three gen- ders are distinguished, masculine, feminine, and neuter; and four cases, nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative. The definite article is declined as follows: masc. sing. nom. de, gen. des or van den, dat. den or aan den, ace. den; fern. sing. nom. de, gen. der or van de, dat. der or aan de, ace. de; neuter sing. nom. het, gen. des or van het, dat. den or aan het, ace. het; plural for all three genders, nom. de, gen. der or van de, dat. den or aan de (sometimes der in the feminine), ace. de. The indefinite article een receives when inflected terminations cor- responding to those of the definite article sin- gular. The plural in nouns is generally formed by adding en to the singular, as meening, opin- ion, meeningen, opinions ; but nouns ending in el, er, aar, and ier take en or s; those in em, en, and diminutives in je, take s; those in heid change into heden; those in man change in- to lieden (Icoopman, pi. kooplieden, as in Ger. Kaufmann, pi. Kaufleute)-, those in e take only n ; and those with a broad vowel double the final consonant before taking en. In the various cases, nouns remain invariable except the masculine and neuter genitive singular, which take s, the neuter dative singular, which receives an e, and the dative of masculine and neuter plurals terminating in s, which is changed into en. Proper names are declined only with the prepositions van and aan, but have a possessive case in s, which is usually connected with it, and separated by an apostro- phe only when the name ends in a long vowel ; thus, Pieters hoeTc, Peter's book, and Attila^a dood, Attila's death. The Dutch forms com- pound words with the same facility as the Ger- man. It is rich also in diminutives ending in je, and forms f eminines either by adding in, as een Jceizer, an emperor, eene Tceizerin, an empress; or by changing the termination er into ster, as een zanger, a singer, eene zangster, a songstress ; or by adding es, as een baron, a baron, eene harones, a baroness ; or by changing man into vrouw, as een Icoopman, a merchant, eene Icoop- vrouw,^ a woman merchant. The declension of adjectives is limited to their taking an e when preceded by an article terminating in e or er, or en when the article ends in en or es: thus, des goeden mans, of the good man; der goede vrouw, to the good woman ; den goeden Mnder- en, to the good children. Adjectives are com- pared by adding er for the comparative and st for the superlative ; but if the adjective ends in r in the positive, the comparative is formed by adding der. The principal personal pro- nouns are ik, I ; wij, we ; gij, thou or you ; hij, he ; zij, she ; het, it ; and zij, they : the posses- sives, mijn, my or mine ; uw, thy or thine ; zijn, his; haar, her or hers ; onze, our or ours ; hun, your or yours ; haar, their or theirs : the inter- rogatives, wie, who ; icat, what ; wellce, welk> which ; hoedanige, hoedanig, which (what kind): the demonstratives, deze, dit, this ; gene, that ; die, dat, that ; degene or diegene, he who. These are all declined more or less after the manner of the definite article. The first ten cardinal num- bers are een, twee, drie, mer, vijf, zes, zeven, acht, negen, and tien ; from which ordinals are formed by adding de or ste, as de merde, the fourth, de achtste, the eighth. The infinitive ends in en, and whatever precedes this termi- nation is the root of the verb. The indica- tive present consists of the root itself, with a final t in the second person singular and plu- ral and the third person singular, and with the addition of en in the first and third persons plural. The imperfect of the indicative and the subjunctive is formed by adding de, ex- cept when the root ends in f, p, Ic, s, t, or ch, when te is added instead ; and when the root ends in tt or dd, e is inserted before the de. The present participle is formed by adding de to the infinitive, and the past participle by pre- fixing ge (generally) and adding d or t. The subjunctive present is formed by adding e to the root, and the imperative is the root itself. There are four auxiliary verbs : hebben, to have;