DE FONOLOGISCHE ATLAS VAN DE NEDERLANDSE DIALECTEN (FAND): OPZET, UfTWERKING EN OPERATIONAUTElT.

In 2005 the third and final volume of the Fonologische Atlas van de Nederlandse Dialecten (abbreviated : FAND) was published.1t was based on an enormous database, which between 1975 and 1994 was realized in three steps: (1) the composition of a questionnaire (1878 isolated words + word groups + short sentences) and the selection of a network of 578 places for fieldwork, (2) the registration and the transcription of the data and (3) the construction and the operationalization of the electronically accessible database. In all the FAND comprises 496 maps (on the right-hand pages) and every map is commented upon on the opposite left-hand page. The comments contain some recurrent ingredients : an overall description of the mapped variation, references to other FAND-maps, to older material, to older monographs and to studies relating to the subject matter under consideration. In many cases there is also an interpretative component, which mainly contains suggestions about which factors may be held responsible for the registered (synchronic) variants and their spatial distribution. In this article I try to answer four fundamental questions with respect to the FAND: 1. 2. 116 What was the authors' main intent for setting up a paper atlas af ter an electronically accessible database had been realised? In section (1.2.) we discuss the relation between the database and the paper atlas and (try to) point out the advantages that arise from the atlas product. Is the FAND basically a synchronic or a diachronic atlas? In section (1.3.) we (try to) demonstrate that, although in the first two volumes on vowel variation we departed from a West-Germanic diasystem, this atlas fundamentally deals with synchronic variation. The historical diasystem was only called in as a reference system/an ordering system, in order to prevent us from comparing apples and oranges. 3. What were the main methodological steps in setting up the atlas? This aspect is dealt with in great detail in section (2.) 4. What can one do with the FAND? In section (3.) we (try to) demonstrate that the FAND adequately functions as a catalyst of questions with respect to the hows and the whys of (a) phonological changes and (b) the spatial distribution of the resulting variants, and also as a generator of questions to other linguistic disciplines and more particularly to phonetics. Together with the database the FAND is meant to facilitate answers to all kinds of questions with respect to phonological variation in the Dutch dialects : what are the ingredients of this phonologicallandscape and how do they interrelate systematically, spatially and historically? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]