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In following the lines of research I have sketched above, my first aim is of course to assemble a clearer picture of the influence of Frisian on the development of ABN specifically. This will no doubt involve research in the Netherlands, specifically at the P.J. Meertens Institute of dialectology in Amsterdam and the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, (footnote 17) to seek out similar research conducted into this question in that country and currently, at least, unavailable here. Certain aspects of my ambitious project may already have been addressed by Dutch scholars, and I will be able to draw upon their findings rather than being required to do it all myself. On the whole, in fact, I do not anticipate a necessity for collecting new data; rather, I see my task in the re-evaluation and reinterpretation of already-collected data in the light of this new framework. The atomistic collections and etymologies mentioned above, along with dialect maps such as Berteloot (1984), will furnish much of the data I expect to need. There is a database of Middle Dutch manuscripts from Holland and other areas of the Netherlands which includes both legal texts and literary writings and will furnish additional material if these later writings prove to be insufficient. The medieval sources consist of documents such as the Corpus Gijsseling which is a collection of the earliest sources of Middle Dutch texts such as Jacob van Maerlant's encyclopedic Der Naturen Bloeme and his poetic translation of the Bible. Aside from the Corpus there are Limburgic texts such as Hendrik van Veldeke's Sint Servaes, Flemish texts such as the allegorical work Tweede Rose, Hollands texts such as Melis Stoke's 14th century history of the Counts of Holland, and Brabants works such as the life of St. Lutgart, and Pater Brugman's sermons and other works from the eastern areas of the country (Van der Wal 1992:107-121). However, I also hope to contribute to the larger question of language change, mainly in the field of language contact theory, which must include a consideration of the applicable sociohistoric background and also aspects of second-language acquisition theory such as bilingualism. My project, by providing a detailed application of Thomason and Kaufman's framework, will serve also as an additional test of that framework, providing the opportunity for its further refinement as well as its verification. I anticipate the dissertation itself to be organized along much the same lines as this prospectus, generally following the same sequence and considering the same topics. To show this in some detail, I include the following outline:
In summary, the goal of my study is to clarify a portion of the development of modern Dutch through the application of the theoretical framework developed by Thomason and Kaufman to data gathered at various points along the history of the language. In other words, while others have mentioned that Frisian has influenced ABN, I plan to show how (and, to some extent, why) it has done so. Other required factors are present but hidden in the mass of data, such as the relative ages of borrowed terms, or clear comparisons of phonetic and structural elements. I propose to untangle such messes as necessary, which in itself will be a contribution to the study of the history of Dutch, and then go further to incorporate the results into my study. Based on Thomason and Kaufman's principle that the development of a language reflects the circumstances of its speakers, I also plan to look into extralinguistic factors. These include the cultural environment - the attitudinal and social factors mentioned above - of the interacting Dutch and Frisian speakers during the relevant periods. I expect to find this cultural environment reflected in contemporary writings, such as verbal caricatures of different social groups, notes made for and by travellers in Noord-Holland, and characterizations of people from particular areas. Extending somewhat into other areas of linguistic research, I intend to include research on bilingualism in this project, as bilingual speakers seem likely to have played a significant role in this contact situation - a role that has not yet been considered. The finished dissertation ought then to be a thorough study of various aspects of Dutch-Frisian contact, and their effect on the development of ABN. It will also act as a test of Thomason and Kaufman's framework in general, and specifically of their assertion that borrowing and interference can occur simultaneously.
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