Do seachdest der idd aardig wasted út ja. De 2de persoan iental doetiid fan 'e sterke tiidwurden yn it Frysk fan 'e jongerein

Abstract

Young people’s internet forums, blogs and chats provide valuable information on ongoing language change. The present article provides an illustration of this by investigating some new developments in the 2^nd person singular past tense of strong verbs in Modern West Frisian. In the 2^nd person singular past tense of strong verbs the ending -st is traditionally added to the past stem (do seach-st ‘you saw’). Already with the older generations there was a tendency to insert the dental suffix -de-/-te-, which is formally identical with the weak past tense marker, between the stem and the ending. This happened first in verbs in which the present- and past-tense forms were homophonous (do seidest for do seist ‘you said’, cf. do seist ‘you say’; do wistest for do wist ‘you knew’, cf. do witst [vIst] ‘you know’); then more generally in verbs with a stem ending in a consonant cluster on -t (do brochtest for do brochtst ‘you brought’) or in a vowel (do wiedest for do wiest ‘you were’). New data from internet forums show, however, that the youngest generation is on its way to generalize this insertion of -de-/-te- to all strong verbs (do seachdest for do seachst ‘you saw’, do skroktest for do skrokst ‘you got scared’). The article describes these developments in some detail and tries to account for them.