PhD dissertation Myrthe Bergstra: Infinitival innovations

Is Frisian turning into Dutch? Myrthe Bergstra examined changes in Frisian grammar as a result of language contact with Dutch. On 23 October, she defends her dissertation at the University Hall.

Internal and external factors

Bergstra looked at three grammatical constructions with verbs which resemble each other in Frisian and Dutch but are still different: endings on infinitives, nouns which together with a verb form one word and the absentive, a grammatical construction which expresses that someone is not there (e.g., Hy is te fiskjen, "He has gone fishing"). According to Bergstra, the changes in Frisian are not only influenced by external (social) factors (e.g. whether speakers of Frisian feel positively about Dutch), but also by internal factors: the structure of the grammatical construction partially determines what the change will look like.

Hij is vissen

The influence of these linguistic factors ensures, for example, that when the linguistic structures of a Frisian and a Dutch construction are very different, there is a good chance that a speaker will also use the Dutch version in his Frisian. He then uses two variants: the original variant of Frisian and the "innovative" variant, i.e. the variant that is more similar to Dutch. For example, there are Frisians who use both "Hy is te fiskjen" and "Hy is fiskjen". The latter variant was created by language contact with Dutch.