Grammatica - loco

2
Spelling
16
Under the spelling rules in force from 1947, where two vowels in compound
words belonging to separate syllables ended up side by side and confusion
could arise, a dieresis was placed on the second vowel to aid the eye, e.g.
naäpen ‘to mimic’. Under the subsequent rules a hyphen is now to be
used in compounds, e.g. na-apen; use of the dieresis is now to be limited
to derivatives (see 2.3.2). Note too the use of the hyphen to assist the
eye in compounds like the following: radio-omroep ‘radio broadcasting
network’, auto-ongeluk ‘car accident’.
There is one more change concerning the use of hyphens in the revised
spelling which one should note. Geographical names like Nieuw-Zeeland
(adj. Nieuw-Zeelands) and Oost-Groningen (adj. Oost-Gronings) were
previously written as one word but they are now hyphenated as illustrated
(see 9.8.4).
Note the use of a hyphen in the two placenames ’s-Gravenhage and ’s-
Hertogenbosch, both more commonly referred to in speech, and even in
writing, as Den Haag and Den Bosch respectively.
2.7
Medial letters in compound words
Tussenklanken in samenstellingen
This has long been one of the most confusing issues in Dutch spelling
and it still remains to be seen whether the 1995 recommendations in this
respect have really alleviated the situation. Because of the tendency of
most speakers to drop their final n’s (see 1.3.1), it was not always evident
from the pronunciation of a compound word whether the e sound between
its constituent parts was to be written e or en, e.g. kippepoot ‘chicken
leg’, kippenhok ‘chicken pen’. One decided on the correct spelling, so the
theory went, by determining whether the first half of the compound conveyed
the idea of plurality. In the given examples the leg belongs to one chicken,
thus -e-, but a pen holds several chickens, thus -en-. But in practice there
were many inconsistencies, e.g. peresap ‘pear juice’, which is hardly made
from the juice of one pear! The new spelling now advocates that one
write -en- in all cases except:
(a) where the first part of the compound is not a noun, e.g. hogeschool
‘tertiary institution’.
(b) where the first part is a noun that can have a plural both in -en and -s
(see 7.2.2.7), e.g. hoogtevrees ‘fear of heights’ not *hoogtenvrees as
the plural of hoogte can be either hoogten or hoogtes.