Loanword adaptations : three problems for phonology ( and a psycholinguistic solution ) *

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 adaptations from a psycholinguistic perspective, our working hypothesis being that they are due to a combination of distinct psychological processes. We discuss three flaws in current phonological analyses, one concerning learnability, the other ones concerning the role of phonetics and perception, respectively. We outline a novel and psychologically plausible model of loanword adaptations that provides a solution to these problems. Before going into the arguments, it is important to distinguish two types of loanwords. First, historical loanwords, i.e. words that have entered the borrowing language and are commonly used by monolingual speakers, have been studied most often. Monolingual speakers who use these loanwords never hear their source forms, and there is thus no reason to postulate an underlying form that differs from the output form in their grammar. In other words, a phonological analysis of the modifications these words have undergone when entering the borrowing language has no direct psychological reality. Rather, it receives a diachronic interpretation, in that it accounts for the adaptations applied by those speakers who have originally introduced the loans. The second type of loanwords are on-line adaptations, i.e. foreign words that are borrowed 'here-and-now' (Shinohara 1997a,b, Kenstowicz and Sohn 2001). In this paper, we tentatively treat historical loanwords and on-line adaptations on a par, * Research for this paper was funded by grants from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique ('Aide à Projet Nouveau') and the Groupement d'Intérêt Scientifique Sciences de la Cognition (99N35/0008). We would like to thank Chris Golston for discussion. 2 assuming that the former reflect on-line adaptations by those speakers who once introduced these words. 1 2. Problem #1: learnability Loanword adaptations typically involve transformations that do not otherwise apply in the language's phonology. Consider, for instance, the treatment of coda consonants in loanwords in White Hmong. This language has a strict CV(V) syllable structure and exhibits no alternations involving either deletion or epenthesis in native words. In loanwords, however, we commonly find segment deletion. For instance, [pe.si] is the adaptation of English pepsi (Golston and Yang 2001). In a classical rule-based …