Nog een vraag over het Nederlands

[alice]

Intervocalic /d/ is often elided in spoken Dutch. Is there any evidence of it weakening to something else, such as /ð/, before disappearing?

[hwhatting]

In some cases, there is a glide in its place, as in (eye dialect) ouwe "old" (Standard orthography oude), or goeje "good" (Standard orthography goede), but I don't know whether the glide is a direct reflex of the elided /d/ or just turns up to fill the hiatus.

[Grunnen]

First, I hope you don't mind I suggest a small correction in this topic's title: Nog een vraag over het Nederlands.

Intervocalic /d/ is often elided in spoken Dutch. Is there any evidence of it weakening to something else, such as /ð/, before disappearing?

Then, I'm afraid I don't really know the answer to your question, but there was a good deal of dialectal variation regarding the outcome of the elision. So for instance the early modern Dutch 'vlade' resulted in two words in Dutch today: 'vla' and 'vlaai'. On vlaai M. Philippa e.a. (2003-2009) Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands (Etymological Dictionary of Dutch) writes the following on this topic:

"Ontstaan uit mnl. vlade door wegval van de intervocalische -d-. Gewoonlijk ontstond in het zuidoostelijke taalgebied (Brabant, Limburg) op de plaats van de -d- een j-klank, terwijl in het westen de -d- volledig wegviel (Schönfeld, par. 35.2).

"Developed from middle Dutch vlade by sincope of intervocalic -d-. Usually in the south-eastern part of the language area (Brabant, Limburg) a [j] developed in the position of the -d-, while the -d- completely disappeared in the western part (Schönfeld, par 35.2)." (my translation)

As hwhatting mentions, the word goede in colloquial Dutch is typically pronounced [ˈχujə]. The Dialectatlas van het Nederlands (Dialect Atlas of Dutch, redaction Nicoline van der Sijs) has a map of the Netherlands and Flanders showing the distribution of different pronunciations of this word. It lists three variants: 1) the aformentioned form ending in [jə], which covers most of the map, 2) a form without the yod, that may or may not contain a [w] as a glide and is found in some places in the south, and 3) the form with the original [d] which is found in three small pockets in Friesland, South Holland, and French and West Flanders.

So this doesn't really answer the question and there are probably better sources on this, but if there ever was a pronunciation like [ð] it's not immediately clear from the modern dialects.

[linguoboy]

Isn't this bass-ackwards since it's generally accepted that /d/ had a fricative allophone intervocallically in Common Germanic? Is there a generally accepted terminus ante quem for the fortition of voiced fricative allophones in Dutch?

[Salmoneus]

Isn't this bass-ackwards since it's generally accepted that /d/ had a fricative allophone intervocallically in Common Germanic? Is there a generally accepted terminus ante quem for the fortition of voiced fricative allophones in Dutch?

"Hardening" (or lack of softening, or whatever) of /d/ to [d] in all positions is believed to be a feature of Western Germanic as a whole; I don't know if that can be proven, though. One thing that is demonstrable is hardening after nasals by the time of Ingvaeonic, because /nd/ doesn't trigger the Ingvaeonic Nasal Spirant Law.

[Howl]

Is there a generally accepted terminus ante quem for the fortition of voiced fricative allophones in Dutch?

Dutch did not have dental fricatives after the 12th century.