111 4 Geographical clines in the realization of intonation in the Netherlands Judith Hanssen, Carlos Gussenhoven, and Jörg Peters 4.1 Introduction Geography is one of the explanatory factors of phonetic variation in speech (cf. Britain 2013). The realization of intonation contours has recently been shown to follow a geographical cline from the southwest to the northeast of the Netherlands, with a continuation to the low Saxon dialect of Weener across the border in Germany (Peters et al. 2014, 2015). Earlier, Gilles (2005: 165) suggested that pitch excursions of f0 falls in varieties of German are larger in the west than in the east of Germany, on the basis of limited data. In these cases, the variation concerns realizational differences in Ladd’s (2008: 116) terms, that is, differences in the phonetic realization of compar- able phonological forms. The realization of intonation contours may differ in more general ways than in function of contextual factors, like the segmental composition of the accented syllable, upcoming word boundaries, or focus. An example is peak timing in English, which is earlier than in Dutch and German, and later in southern German than in northern German (Atterer and Ladd 2004; Ladd et al. 2009; Mücke et al. 2009), while Kügler (2007) reported later f0 peaks in the southern Swabian variety of German than in the eastern Upper Saxon variety. Dialectal variation in tonal timing has also been reported for var- ieties of Lowland Scots1 (van Leyden 2004), German (Peters 1999; Gilles 2005), American English (Arvaniti and Garding 2007), Irish (Kalaldeh et al. 2009), and British English (Ladd et al. 2009). Second, pitch excursion size and overall pitch level equally show regional variation. Belgian women speak at a higher pitch than Dutch women (van Bezooijen 1993), and Gilles (2005: 165) reported variation in f0 excursion size of falling contours between speakers of eight varieties of German. Ulbrich (2005) reported differences in pitch range between speakers of two standard varieties of German (Swiss and Northern German).2 Finally, the dialects spoken on the Orkney and Shetland islands differ in overall pitch level, with intonation contours in the Orkney variety being realized at a higher pitch (van Leyden 2004). For Dutch, dialectal characteristics had until recently only been described informally (van Es 1935; Daan 1938; Weijnen 1966). Two studies have 112 112 Judith Hanssen et al. now added support to geographical clines on the basis of comparative measurements on Zeelandic and Hollandic Dutch, West Frisian, Dutch and German Low Saxon, and Northern High German. Peters et al. (2014) investigated the effect of focus domain sizes smaller than the word on the real- ization of non- final falling nuclear contours and Peters et al. (2015) examined the effects of word boundary location on tonal timing of non-final nuclear falls. Besides reporting effects, the authors described more general dialectal differences in contour realization. For a number of phonetic variables, an inverted U- shaped cline was observed. Overall, the “central” varieties took more time to realize the f0 movements, which resulted in larger f0 excursions, higher peaks, and later alignment of the pitch gesture with the segmental string. The accentual gestures of the peripheral varieties, on the other hand, were more compact, both in terms of duration and excursion. Apparently, the phonetic realization of nuclear falls in these varieties is determined more strongly by geographical proximity than by their linguistic grouping. Compared to non-final falls, final falls may be realized with longer seg- mental durations due to final lengthening (e.g., Wightman et al. 1992; Gussenhoven and Rietveld 1992), earlier f0 peaks (e.g., Steele 1986; Prieto et al. 1995; Peters 1999), and steeper or shorter f0 falls (e.g., Grabe 1998). This chapter intends to expand on the data by Peters et al. (2014, 2015) by investi- gating whether we can replicate the finding of a geographical cline in the real- ization of non- final nuclear falling contours and whether it is also found for IP- final nuclear falls and fall- rises. Since the peripheral varieties of German Low Saxon and Northern High German are not included in our data set, we actually expect to find only part of the inverted U- shape, that is, a truncated one. We will report dialectal differences in segmental duration as well as tonal timing, pitch excursion, pitch slope, and overall pitch level. 4.2 Procedure 4.2.1 Materials We used three sets of sentences. The first set contained four declarative narrow- focus carrier sentences with a non- final falling pitch accent (nf- FALL); the second set contained four declarative narrow- focus carrier sentences with an IP- final falling pitch accent (f- FALL); and the last set contained four rhet- orical questions with an IP- final falling- rising pitch accent (f- FR). All 12 car- rier sentences (labeled “B”) were preceded by a context sentence (“A”) with which they formed a mini- dialogue, as illustrated in Table 4.1. In the non- final declaratives, the target words consisted of fictitious place names,Momberen , Memberen, Manderen, Munderen,3 which had the metrical pattern sww, in which the segmental structure of the accentable first syllable was Nasal- V- Nasal, followed by a voiced plosive onset consonant. They were followed by a sequence of two sw verbs. In the carrier sentences for the accentable IP- final position, four fictitious monosyllabic proper names,Lof , Loof, Lom, 113 Geographical clines 113 Table 4.1 Dutch context sentences and experimental sentences used to elicit non-final falls, final falls, and final fall- rises, with English translations Context sentence Carrier sentence nf- FALL Waar zouden je oom en tante Ze zouden bij MANDEREN willen wonen? willen wonen. Where would your uncle and aunt They’d like to live near Manderen. want to live? f- FALL Met wie gaat je baas morgen Hij trouwt met mevrouw de trouwen? LOOM. Who will your boss marry He’ll marry Mrs. de Loom. tomorrow? f- FR Dit antieke horloge is nog van Het was toch van opa LOOM? opa Thijssen geweest. This antique wristwatch used to But didn’t it belong to grandfather belong to grandfather Thijssen. Loom? Note: The target sentences are printed in bold; the word carrying the nuclear pitch accent is capitalized. Loom, were used as target words in each pragmatic condition. These varied in the rime only, where short [ɔ] and long [oː] combined with voiceless [f] and sonorant [m]. A slightly modified version of these sentences was used to collect the Standard Dutch data. The sentences shown in Table 4.1 were used for Zuid- Beveland, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam. Speakers from Zuid- Beveland translated the sentences into their variety as they spoke. We translated the sentences into the local language for speakers of West Frisian and Low Saxon, which have standardized spelling systems. For all varieties, the rhythmic, lexical, and segmental contexts were comparable to the Standard Dutch materials. A list of the sentences in all language versions is given in the Appendix. 4.2.2 Varieties and subjects Recordings were made in five locations along the Dutch coast, covering four dialect groups (Figure 4.1). Zeelandic Dutch in Zuid-Beveland (ZB), Southern Hollandic in Rotterdam (RO), and Northern Hollandic in Amsterdam (AM) belong to the Low Franconian dialect group. West Frisian was recorded in Grou (GR) and Low Saxon in Winschoten (WI). The Standard Dutch (SD) speakers were recorded in Nijmegen. Historically, Standard Dutch has close relations to western varieties like Rotterdam and Amsterdam (cf. Smakman 2006 and references therein). We recorded 119 speakers (between 18 and 23 speakers for each variety), 49 of whom were male. They were aged between 14 and 49. Participants were university students (SD), secondary school students (ZB), members of 114 114 Judith Hanssen et al. Winschoten Grou North Sea GERMANY Amsterdam THE NETHERLANDS Rotterdam Nijmegen Zuid-Beveland Figure 4.1 Recording locations in the Netherlands a Scouting club (RO, AM), or members of the local community (GR, WI). The speakers from Zuid-Beveland, Grou, and Winschoten were bilingual with Standard Dutch and their local language. All regional speakers and at least one of their parents were raised in the selected place and spoke the indigenous variety fluently. For Standard Dutch, the procedure was different, as the area where this variety is spoken is less determined by geographical boundaries. Speakers could participate if they reported to speak Standard Dutch. Besides self- reporting, two Dutch phoneticians independently judged each recording. Recordings were included if the judges agreed that the geographical and lin- guistic origin of the participants could not be determined by their accent. Except for the speakers of West Frisian and Standard Dutch, our speakers were less familiar with their local language as a written language, which may have had a negative influence on the fluency of the speech in the reading task of some speakers. Participants’ recordings were excluded if they were (highly) disfluent or appeared to the experimenter not to speak naturally; if the speakers afterward reported that they were dyslexic or had hearing problems; or if the speakers turned out not to satisfy the requirements with respect to their linguistic or geographical background. All participants were naive as to the purpose of the task and were paid for their participation. 4.2.3 Recording procedure and data selection To avoid listing effects, the 12 mini-dialogues were interspersed with 61 filler sentences (used for other experiments) and presented in a booklet, in randomized order, which was reversed for half of the subjects per variety. 115 Geographical clines 115 Speakers were recorded in pairs to reduce any effects of the experimenter’s presence and the nature of the task on their dialect level.