Talk:-lijk

The two allomorphs
This suffix has two allomorphs, and. 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 is used after an unstressed syllable, while  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 but not others. Maybe syllable weight is a factor there. There also seem to be words that do not fit these rules regardless, e.g., , , , 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)
 * *Maklijk is an interesting example, because in Afrikaans is by far the main form. ←₰-→  Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  10:12, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
 * 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 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, 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  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 . --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)