Talk:-lijk

The two allomorphs

@Lingo Bingo Dingo, Lambiam This suffix has two allomorphs, -lijk and -elijk. I've been trying to figure out what triggers one variant or the other, and whether there are any exceptions. So far, it seems that -lijk is used after an unstressed syllable, while -elijk is used after a stressed one. But the shorter variant appears to be used after a stressed syllable ending in a vowel, -l or -r, and also some cases of -n (pijnlijk, aanzienlijk) but not others (mannelijk, beminnelijk). Maybe syllable weight is a factor there. There also seem to be words that do not fit these rules regardless, e.g. lieflijk, ontzaglijk, beweeglijk, geneeslijk, all of which end in a fricative. —Rua (mew) 09:46, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

To complicate the issue, for the last three you also have the alternative forms liefelijk, ontzaggelijk and bewegelijk. And conversely, there is manlijk. However, *pijnelijk and *aanzienelijk are apparently not possible, and neither are *kenlijk, *hooplijk, *maklijk and *mooglijk. Perhaps these observations offer more pieces of the puzzle.  --Lambiam 10:01, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

@Lambiam *Maklijk is an interesting example, because in Afrikaans maklik is by far the main form. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 10:12, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

@Rua Thanks for that. I think syllable weight is indeed a factor of some importance; long vowels and diphthongs seem to have a preference for -lijk, with short vowels it is the other way round. On the other hand with complex codas -elijk is more common, even with long vowels (feestelijk); koninklijk is an exception to that tendency but an instance of the stress rule. I also notice that the preference for -elijk is particularly strong after the alveolar plosives. In addition, stems ending on -ng often get -nkelijk; whether that is a relic of an older pronunciation or an influence from other languages (from the top of my head some of these words are calques from German) is something I don't know. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 10:08, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

On the other hand (the third by now?), after a (stressed) long vowel and -m it seems quite common to have -elijk: tamelijk, schromelijk. I wonder if -lijk ever occurs after unstressed syllables on -m, but to the best of my knowledge bezem, vadem, nozem and boezem are never used with this suffix.

Could voice be a minor factor as well for fricatives? ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 10:41, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the variant -lijk is never preceded by a voiced fricative. But that probably applies to suffixes more generally? —Rua (mew) 11:23, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

I was thinking of terms like vreselijk, vleselijk and so on, but I can't think of any good counter-examples for voiceless fricatives. It's probably just going to be a case of voiced fricatives occurring after long vowels and diphthongs, which are usually stressed. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:08, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

And of course vlees has an originally voiceless root < vleesch, so the voicing in vlezes, vlezig is secondary. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:11, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

There are occurrences of vreezlijk in older texts, also spelled vreez’lijk, which suggests that the <z> is not devoiced – although vreeslijk and vrees’lijk are also found. In contemporary Dutch there is heuglijk, which in Southern Dutch would be realized with a voiced fricative /ɣ/.  --Lambiam 12:18, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Interesting use of the apologetic apostrophe, indicating that the writer probably felt a schwa should go there. —Rua (mew) 15:46, 20 November 2019 (UTC)