While it is commonly assumed that languages epenthesize context-free default vowels, this book shows that in loanword adaptation, several strategies are found which interact intricately. Large loanword corpora in Shona, Sranan, Samoan and Kinyarwanda are analyzed statistically, and the patterns are modeled in a version of Optimality Theory which introduces constraints on autosegmental representations. The focus of this book is on English loans in Shona, providing an in-depth empirical and formal analysis of epenthesis in this language. The analysis of additional languages allows for solid typological generalizations. In addition, a diachronic study of epenthesis in Sranan provides insight into how insertion patterns develop historically. In all languages analyzed, default epenthesis exists alongside vowel harmony and spreading from adjacent consonants. While different languages prefer different strategies, these strategies are subject to the same set of constraints, however. In spreading, feature markedness plays an important role alongside sonority. We suggest universal markedness scales which combine with constraints on autosegmental configurations to model the patterns found in individual languages and at the same time to constrain the range of possible crosslinguistic variation.

Dotyczy: epenthesis, Optimality Theory, loanwords, Italian, phonology.

Abstract: The current study investigates loanword adaptations in the Arabic language. It supports the perceptual approximation stance asserting that the adaptation process is based on acoustic similarities rather than segment preservation by drawing evidence from two phenomena found in loanword adaptations. The first phenomenon is the pharyngealization phenomenon in which some loanwords adapted into Arabic are adapted with emphatic pharyngealized consonants, while the second phenomenon is vowel epenthesis. The claim presented in this study suggests that the pharyngealization phenomenon occurs due to the back vowel found in the source language in which it is associated with emphatic pharyngealized consonants in Arabic. Hence, the perception of the source language phoneme as an allophonic variant of an Arabic phoneme led to the pharyngealization phenomenon. The study also claims that the site in which a vowel is inserted to treat forbidden structures is governed by the nature of the cluster to increase the acoustic similarities between the input and the output. Fifty-five Najdi Arabic monolinguals and 55 Najdi Arabic-English bilinguals were recruited. The participants were given English nonce words containing /s/ and /t/ followed by the English back vowel /?/ which is also an allophonic variant of the Arabic phoneme /a/. They were also given English nonce words containing illegal initial consonant clusters in Najdi Arabic. The findings revealed that Najdi Arabic monolinguals adapted the consonant /s/ with pharyngealization more than the Najdi Arabic bilinguals; however, they did not show significant pharyngealization adaptation for /t/. Regarding vowel epenthesis, the study showed that vowel insertion was systematically governed by the nature of the cluster. However, they findings were not very clear regarding initial tri-consonant clusters.

"This landmark publication in comparative linguistics is the first comprehensive work to address the general issue of what kinds of words tend to be borrowed from other languages. The authors have assembled a unique database of over 70,000 words from 40 languages from around the world, 18,000 of which are loanwords. This database allows the authors to make empirically founded generalizations about general tendencies of word exchange among languages." --Book Jacket.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral--Humboldt--Univ., 2008).

English-based Mandarin loanwords are commonly used in Chinese people’s daily lives. Mandarin Loanwords demonstrates how English phonemes map into Mandarin phonemes through Mandarin loanwords adaptation. The consonantal adaptations are the most important in the analyses, and vowel adaptation and tonal adaptation is also considered. Through the analysis, it is proven that the functions of phonology and phonetics play a significant role in Mandarin loanword adaptation, however the functions of other factors, such as semantic functions of Chinese characters and English orthography, are also discussed. Additionally, the phonetic symbolization of Chinese characters is mentioned.

This book presents an empirical study of syllable structure and phonotactic restructuring in six Caribbean creoles with Dutch, English and French as main lexifier languages. It is shown that, although some structures are more commonly permitted than others, there is considerable cross-creole variation, especially with respect to word-final structures. The findings provide support for recent SLA approaches to the emergence of creole phonology.

This dissertation concerns cluster-dependent asymmetries in vowel epenthesis in loanword adaptation and in non-native cluster perception. The central argument is that auditory factors affect the relative perceptual similarity between consonant clusters and the corresponding epenthesis forms, which in turn plays an important role in determining the site of epenthesis in loanword adaptation. This dissertation provides an extended typology of vowel epenthesis sites in consonant cluster adaptation, considering a variety of clusters both in word-initial and in word-final positions. It will be argued that the cluster-dependent asymmetries in epenthesis sites are best explained by the auditory properties of consonant clusters, such as intensity rise. Specifically, if a cluster involves an intensity rise inside the cluster, epenthesis occurs inside the cluster; if a cluster involves an intensity rise outside the cluster, epenthesis occurs outside the cluster; and if a cluster involves two intensity rises, either internal or external epenthesis can occur. I argue that this is because the epenthetic vowel insertion where there is an intensity rise makes a perceptually less salient change from the original cluster than epenthesis where there is no intensity rise, based on the P-map hypothesis (Steriade, 2008) that an output involving a perceptually smaller change is more optimal. The results of several perception experiments support the hypothesis by showing that not only intensity rise but also C1 voicing have a significant effect on the perceptual similarity between the consonant clusters and the corresponding epenthesis forms. Crucially, it will be shown that the novel generalization about vowel epenthesis sites and the results of perception experiments employing phonetically diverse stimuli can be best explained by the auditory properties, and not by the sonority profile, which has traditionally been used to explain these data.

This dissertation investigates segment insertion through two contextualized loanword adaptation processes: intervocalic nasal and coda [m] adaptations, with corpus and experimental data. My research focuses are: 1) to identify the phonological environments of segment insertion in the target adaptation processes in my corpus data, and propose explanations for the insertion patterns in Standard Mandarin loanwords; 2) to verify my arguments with experimental data; 3) to examine whether bilingualism affects target segment adaptations; and 4) to discuss what linguistic mechanism controls the adaptation processes.Nasal insertion in Mandarin loanwords is considered an "unnecessary repair" since both English and Mandarin allow a syllable containing consonant-vowel-nasal. However, the existing loanwords show that nasal insertion has strong correlation to the prenasal vowel quality, and the primary word stress location in the source language. To trigger nasal insertion, the English prenasal vowel has to be lax (vowel type condition) and must bear the primary word stress (stress location condition), e.g. Denis → [tan.niː.sɹ̩]. Nasal insertion rarely occurs when the prenasal vowel is tense or a diphthong, e.g. ˈLina → [liː.naː]. Variable adaptation occurs when the prenasal vowel is [ə], e.g. ˈTiffany →[tiː.fan.nei] ~ [tiː.fuː.niː]. Low back [ɑ] never triggers nasal insertion, e.g. Caˈbana → [khaː.paː.naː]. I propose that adaptors are sensitive to the fine acoustic cues of the prenasal vowel and stress syllabification pattern. I argue that the "unnecessary repair" is necessary for acoustic cue mapping so the input is perceptually similar to the output.Vowel epenthesis is argued to fix illicit coda [m] in Mandarin, but it is related to syllable location and the following consonant type. It occurs in word-medial and word-final coda positions. It never occurs in homorganic environments with a prenasal lax vowel, e.g. Columbia → [kɤː.lun.piːjaː]. However, with a prenasal diphthong or tense vowel, vowel epenthesis still appears. Variable adaptation is present when coda [m] is in word-medial position followed by an obstruent, e.g. Camden → [khaː.muː.tən] ~ [khən.tun]. I propose that vowel epenthesis takes place to preserve all the segmental information, although the output may be perceived as less similar to the input due to an excess vowel. Repairing with [n]/[n] in homorganic environments not only preserves all the underlying features but also leads the output to be more perceptually similar to the input. Both modification methods suggest that coda [m] adaptation is motivated by phonological grammaticality, and acoustic cues play a relatively minor role.33 Mandarin monolingual and 24 Mandarin-English bilingual speakers participated in the experiments. Test item structures followed the corpus generalizations. For intervocalic nasal adaptation, the results from both groups are similar to each other and to the corpus data patterns: participants were sensitive to prenasal vowel quality. Similar results from the two groups further confirm that nasal insertion is more phonetically driven. For coda [m] adaptation, the results from the bilingual participants follow the Preservation Principle, even in homorganic lax vowel environments. The monolinguals repair the coda [m] through epenthesis and nasal place change by chance. I suggest that the coda [m] adaptation process is phonologically driven.This dissertation demonstrates that nasal adaptations in Standard Mandarin are contextualized. Two adaptation processes with essential differences in grammaticality are controlled by different linguistic mechanisms. Intervocalic nasal adaptation supports the perception-based loanword model, whereas coda [m] adaptation supports the phonology-based model.