West Frisian grammar  The grammar of the West Frisian language, a West Germanic language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland ("Fryslân") in the north of the Netherlands, is similar to other West Germanic languages, most notably Dutch. West Frisian is more analytic than its ancestor language Old Frisian, largely abandoning the latter's case system. It features two genders and inflects nouns in the singular and plural numbers. Verbs inflect for person, number, mood, and tense, though many forms are formed using periphrastic constructions. There are two conjugations of weak verbs, in addition to strong and irregular verbs. In West Frisian there are two grammatical genders for nouns: the "common" gender ("de-words"), and the "neuter" gender ("it-words"). All plural nouns and common singular nouns take the definite article "de", while singular neuter nouns take the definite article "it". Regardless of gender, all nouns take the indefinite article "in". West Frisian nouns inflect for two numbers: "singular" and "plural". There are two productive suffixes used to form the plural: ""-(e)n"" and ""-s"". The suffix ""-(e)n"" is used for nouns in which the final syllable is stressed. The suffix ""-s"" is appended to plural nouns that end (in the singular) with unstressed syllables ""-el", "-em", "-en", "-er", "-ert", "-ier", "-mer", "-ter", "-ster", "-sje"". It also appears after the diminutive suffixes ""-je"", ""-ke"", and ""-tsje"", or as ""-'s"" at the end of many borrowed words. In rare cases, usually with nouns that generally come in pairs, a "double plural" is used, where both suffixes appear. A few nouns have irregular plural forms:   In West Frisian, there are three productive diminutive suffixes: ""-je"", ""-ke"", and ""-tsje"". The first of these three is used with nouns that end with the sounds /x/, /ɣ/, /k/ and /ŋ/, ""-tsje"" with nouns that end with /d/, /l/, /n/ and /t/, and ""-ke"" with all other sounds.