<OT> New Posting: ROA-729

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 729-0305

Loan phonology is not all perception: Evidence from Japanese loan doublets

Jennifer L. Smith <jlsmith AT email DOT unc DOT edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=729


Abstract:
A recent model of loanword phonology (Peperkamp & Dupoux
2003, Peperkamp to appear) proposes that loanword adaptation
- phonological adjustment that makes a loan conform to the
phonology of the borrowing language - is driven directly
by speech perception, not by an unfaithful input-output
mapping in the phonological grammar. This paper presents
evidence from English-to-Japanese loan doublets (loanwords
with two different phonological outcomes in Japanese), showing
that the perception-only model of loanword adaptation is
too restrictive. While perceptual factors are important,
the phonological grammar must play a role in loanword adaptation
as well. A new phonological approach to loan adaptation,
based on output-output faithfulness (Benua 1997), is outlined
that incorporates the importance of perceptual similarity
in loan adaptation but maintains the fundamental role of
the phonological grammar in determining whether and how
loans are adapted.

Comments: To appear in In T. Vance, ed., Japanese/Korean Linguistics, volume 14. Stanford: CSLI.
Keywords: loanword, perception, repair strategy
Areas: Phonology,Phonetics
Type: Conference Proceedings Chapter

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=729