The Belgian Limburg dialect of Hamont

Abstract

Hamont is a small town located on the north-eastern edge of the Belgian province of Limburg, on the national border with the Netherlands. It is situated about 30 km south of Eindhoven and 15 km west of Weert in the Netherlands. The town has about 13,500 inhabitants. According to Belemans, Kruijsen & Van Keymeulen (1998), the dialect of Hamont belongs to the West Limburg dialects (subclassification: Dommellands). Limburg dialects occupy a unique position among the Belgian and Dutch dialects in that their prosodic system has a lexical tone distinction, which is traditionally referred to as SLEEPTOON 'dragging tone' and STOOTTOON 'push tone'. In line with recent conventions, stoottoon is referred to as Accent 1 and transcribed as superscript 1; sleeptoon is referred to as Accent 2 and is transcribed as superscript 2 (cf. Schmidt 1986). © Journal of the International Phonetic Association 2007.