De- en it-wurden yn it Frysk

Abstract

Frisian and Dutch have the same gender system, in that they have neuter nouns (it/het-words) and non-neuter nouns (de-words). Nevertheless, both languages have quite a few nouns which  differ in gender. Frisian has a number of it-words, the Dutch counterparts of which are dewords (e.g. Frisian it skouder - Dutch de schouder 'the shoulder'). Furthermore, there are some cases in which Frisian has a de-word, whereas Dutch has a het-word (e.g. Frisian de mar - Dutch het meer 'the lake'). In both cases, it is Dutch which has retained the original gender. In this article, we explain the change de > it in Frisian as basically a sandhi phenomenon,
whereas de < it is explained as a generalised dative case form.