<OT> New Posting: ROA-609

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 609-0803

Salience and Similarity in Loanword Adaptation: A Case Study from Fijian
Michael Kenstowicz <kenstow at mit.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=609


Abstract:
In loanword adaptation the adapter is faced with choices as 
to how to change the word to conform to the native system 
of phonological constraints. In many cases the native grammar 
does not provide sufficient guidance to resolve the choices. 
Recent study of the problem (Fleischaker 2000, Kang 2002, Kenstowicz
2001, Steriade 2002) suggests that notions of auditory salience and 
similarity play a major role. The adapter will preserve features whose 
absence would be most noticeable; if a change must be introduced 
it will be as unobtrusive as possible. This paper reports the 
results of a study of the corpus of English loans into Fijian 
(Schutz 1978) from the perspective of salience and similarity. 

Keywords: loanwords, salience, epenthesis

Area: phonology

Type: manuscript

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=609