Marginal contrast in loanword phonology: Production and perception

Though Dutch is usually described as lacking a voicing contrast at the velar place of articulation, due to intense language contact and heavy lexical borrowing, between /k/ /g/ has recently been emerging. We explored status this in speakers both production perception. asked participants produce loanwords containing source (e.g., goal) found range productions, including great many unadapted [g] tokens. also tested same on their perception emerging [k] ~ that our were able discriminate well. additionally possibility those who use new more are better perceiving it, but we did not observe strong evidence such link. Overall, results indicate adoption sound well advanced population tested, still modulated by individual-level factors. hold contrasts through like other phonological contrasts, subject perceptual functional constraints, these ‘marginal contrasts’ must be considered full-fledged parts phonology.