NYU Linguistics
About | Graduate | Undergraduate | Contact | People | Events | Working Papers | Site Map | Home

An Optimality Theoretical Account of Preservation in Loanword Adaptation

The phonological processes by which loanwords are assimilated into Japanese have been described by Itô & Mester (1993), Stanlaw (1992), and Sonoda (1975). However, developing a model for loanword assimilation has been problematic, especially for models which view loans as a separate sublexicon with a phonology distinct from the native lexicon (Kiparsky 1982). This paper builds on a filter-based model within Optimality Theory (OT) which places loanwords on a continuum of assimilation within the native phonology. Itô & Mester's (1993) "core-periphery" model handles foreign words not as a homogeneous class, but as a "whole range of items at different stages of nativization" (Itô & Mester 1993:4). The model implies a hierarchy of "foreignness" from native words and older loans to the most recent loans: the less nativized an item, the more it is exempt from lexical constraints. According to OT, a language is defined by its unique ranking of constraints (McCarthy & Prince 1993). The core-periphery model posits a fixed ranking of Markedness constraints within a language. These constraints interact with Faithfulness constraints which try to keep the loanword as close as possible to its original shape. The assimilation of foreign segments or syllable structures not found in the native phonology causes Faithfulness constraints to move with respect to Markedness constraints.

The issue at hand is how to account for loanword segments which have not been assimilated into the native phonology. Unassimilated ill-formed loanword segments must be adapted in order to satisfy the Markedness constraints of the borrowing language, but difficulties arise when we try to predict how these segments will be repaired. Languages such as Fula, Kinyarwanda, Moroccan Arabic, Quebec French, as well as Japanese show a preference for preserving structure: ill-formed segments are repaired more often through epenthesis and adaptation than deletion (Paradis 1996:1). Paradis (1996) claims that OT cannot predict the preference for preservation unless we propose a fixed ranking of Faithfulness such that deletion is the least favored method of repair (MAX » DEP). However, such a ranking only predicts preservation, making it impossible to predict when an ill-formed segment will be repaired through deletion. Reranking MAX and DEP to account for cases of deletion would render the theory descriptive. Relying on the Faithfulness constraints Linearity, Uniformity and Integrity (McCarthy & Prince 1995), this paper will show that OT can predict when a segment will be repaired through epenthesis, adaptation or deletion without changing the ranking of Faithfulness. OT is ideally suited for an analysis of loanword adaptation because it describes universal rather than language-specific processes. As such it is better at explaining how loanwords are adapted cross-linguistically than generative theories. Using data from Fula, Kinyarwanda and Japanese, this paper demonstrates how OT successfully predicts when ill-formed segments will be preserved, adapted or deleted. It will also show how Paradis' Theory of Constraints and Repair Strategies (TCRS) wrongly predicts deletion in Japanese.

References:

Itô, Junko & Armin Mester. 1993. Japanese Phonology Constraint Domains and Structure Preservation. In John Goldsmith (ed.), A Handbook of Phonological Theory. Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics Series.

Kiparsky, Paul. 1982. Lexical Phonology and Morphology. Linguistics in the Morning Calm, ed. by I. S. Yang, 3-91. Seoul: Hanshin.

McCarthy, John & Alan Prince. 1993. Prosodic Morphology I: Constraint Interaction and Satisfaction. To appear, MIT Press. Technical Report #3, Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science. Pp. 184.

McCarthy & Prince. 1995. Faithfulness and Reduplicative Identity in J. Beckman et al. (eds.), University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 18: Papers in Optimality Theory.

Paradis, Carole. 1996. "The Inadequacy of Filters and Faithfulness in Loanword Adaptation" to appear in Jacques Durand & Bernard Laks (1996). Current Trends in Phonology. University of Salford Publications, Salford.

Sonoda, Koji. 1975. NYU Dissertation "A Descriptive Study of English Influence on Modern Japanese."

Stanlaw, James. 1992. "English in Japanese Communicative Strategies," in Braj B. Kachru (ed.), The Other Tongue: English across Cultures. Chicago: U. of Illinois Press.

NYU | Graduate School | Department of Linguistics Home | Resources
Last updated November 17, 1999