Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 December 2010
The dialect geography and etymology of Dutch, Frisian, and German trVm(e) ‘crossbeam’ suggest that western Dutch triem continues West Germanic +‑ǣ-, which underwent vowel raising to /i./ as in Frisian. Thus, Dutch traam beside triem belongs to an established group of Standard Dutch words showing /a./ next to /i./ from West Germanic +‑ǣ-, such as schraal vs. schriel. It is argued that the survival of words in /i./ in the coastal dialects of Dutch fits into recent theories that Standard Dutch is the result of language contact between medieval Frisian and Franconian.*