In this paper, I examine the adaptation of English /z/ in 1930s Korean based on a loanword dictionary published in 1937 (Lee 1937). The key findings are that the adaptation pattern in the 1930s is much more variable and shows sensitivity to multiple factors present in the input language, including allophonic details, orthographic representation, and morphological structure. I discuss the implic...

This paper examines English-based loanwords in Standard Mandarin in light of various proposals on how loanwords are adapted and processed, and discusses the implications of the findings in loanword adaptation for phonological theory. There have been three major approaches to the adaptation and processing of sound-based loanwords: the Perception Approach, the Phonology Approach, and the Percepti...

BACKGROUND: Accentuation in Japanese loanword phonology has been an area of controversy. Previous linguists such as McCawley (1968) have suggested a traditional mora-based generalization: loanword accentuation in Japanese has a basic default pattern on the syllable containing the antepenultimate mora; while others claim that Japanese loanword accentuation follows the Latin stress rule (Kubozono...

1. Introduction Phonologists have long held an interest in loanword adaptations, that is in transformations of foreign words into forms that better conform to the phonotactics of the borrowing language. Analyses of such adaptations generally involve phonological processes that apply to the phonetic representation of the words in the source language. In this paper, we look at loanword adaptation...

The present article examines the changes that affect stressed vowels in the nativization of loanwords into Standard German, e.g. laxing of vowels like [i] to [i] in Ffijrma (< Italian Ffijrma). An Optimality-Theoretic treatment (Prince & Smolensky 1993) of the loanword data is proposed in which the nativization process is accounted for by ranking two MARKEDNESS constraints ahead of two FAITH co...

When an English word with a postvocalic word-final stop is adapted to Korean, a vowel is variably inserted after the final stop. Vowel insertion in this position is puzzling not only because of its variability but also because of the fact that it is not motivated by the native phonology in any obvious way. After providing a thorough description of the vowel-insertion pattern on the basis of a s...

There is great variation in whether foreign sounds in loanwords are adapted or retained. Importantly, the retention of foreign sounds can lead to a sound change in the language. We propose that social factors influence the likelihood of loanword sound adaptation, and use this case to introduce a novel experimental paradigm for studying language change that captures the role of social factors. S...