The first person singular in Dutch dialects

1 The first person singular in Dutch Recent years have witnessed a renewed interest in the study of the phonological differences between morphological categories, in particular between nouns and verbs (e. Generally speaking, there seem to be three types of approach to these distinctions within constraint-based grammar: 1. Assume that there are separate (faithfulness) constraints or constraint rankings for nouns and verbs. This is the least restrictive analysis which also does not shed light on the question why morphological categories should differ at all. Hence this option can only be used as a last resort, when other options fail (as in Postal 1968, Smith 2001), and we will not pursue it here. 2. Assume that verbs are organized in paradigms, whereas nouns are not (or are organized in paradigms of a different structure). These paradigms have a uniformizing effect, and this explains the different behaviour of the two categories. We will call this a paradigmatic approach. 3. Assume that the structure of nouns and verbs is somehow different, for instance because the latter are always inflected, whereas the former are not (or are inflected in a different way). We will call this a structural approach. The last two options share the assumption that the differences between the two categories are not random, but somehow related to (or derived from) the morphologies of nouns and