Predictions on markedness and feature resilience in loanword adaptation

Predictions on markedness and feature resilience in loanword adaptation

Thèse

Daniel Paul Stoltzfus

Doctorat en Linguistique

Philosophiæ Doctor (Ph.D.)

Québec, Canada

Résumé

Normalement, un emprunt est adapté afin que ses éléments étrangers s’intégrent au système phonologique de la langue emprunteuse. Certains auteurs (cf. Miao 2005; Steriade 2001b, 2009) ont soutenu que, lors de l’adaptation d’une consonne, les traits de manière d’articulation sont plus résistants au changement que les traits laryngaux (ex. : le voisement) ou que ceux de place. Mes résultats montrent cependant que les traits de manière (ex. : [±continu]) sont impliqués dans les adaptations consonantiques aussi fréquemment que les autres traits (ex. [±voisé] et [±antérieur]). Par exemple, le /z/ français est illicite à l’initiale en anglais. Les options d’adaptation incluent /z/ ^ [z] (changement de place), /z/ ^ [J] (changement de voisement) et /z/ ^ [d3] (changement de manière).

Contrairement aux prédictions des auteurs précités, l’adaptation primaire en anglais est /z/ ^ [d3], avec changement de manière (ex. français [3elatin] gélatine ^ anglais [d3elætin]). Plutôt qu’une résistance des traits de manière, les adaptations étudiées dans ma thèse font ressortir une nette tendance à la simplification. Mon hypothèse est que les langues adaptent les consonnes étrangères en en éliminant les complexités. Donc un changement impliquant l’élimination plutôt que l’insertion d’un trait marqué sera préféré. Ma thèse innove aussi en montrant qu’une consonne est le plus souvent importée lorsque sa stratégie d’adaptation primaire implique l’insertion d’un trait marqué. Les taux d’importation sont systématiquement élevés pour les consonnes dont l’adaptation impliquerait l’insertion d’un tel trait (ici [+continu] ou [+voisé]). Par exemple, /d3/ en anglais, lorsque adapté, devient /z/

en français après l’insertion de [+continu]; cependant, l’importation de /d3/ est de loin

préférée à son adaptation (89%). En comparaison, /d3/ est rarement importé (10%) en

germano-pennsylvanien (GP) parce que l’adaptation de /d3/ à [tJ] (élision du trait marqué

[+voisé]) est disponible, contrairement au cas du français. Cependant, le /t/ anglais à l’initiale, lui, est majoritairement importé (74%) en GP parce que son adaptation en /d/ impliquerait l’insertion du trait marqué [+voisé]. Ma thèse permet non seulement de mieux cerner la direction des adaptations, mais repère aussi ce qui favorise fortement les importations sur la base d’une notion déjà établie en phonologie : la marque.

Abstract

A loanword is normally adapted to fit its foreign elements to the phonological system of the borrowing language (L1). Recently, some authors (e.g. Miao 2005; Steriade 2001b, 2009) have proposed that during the adaptation process of a second language (L2) consonant, manner features are more resistant to change than are non-manner features. A careful study of my data indicate that manner features (e.g. [¿continuant]) are as likely to be involved in the adaptation process as are non-manner [±voice] and [±anterior]. For example, French /3/ is usually not tolerated word-initially in English. Adaptation options

include /3/ ^ [z] (change of place), /3/ ^ [J] (change of voicing) and /3/ ^ [d3] (change of

manner). The primary adaptation in English is /z/ ^ [d3] (e.g. French [3elatin] gélatine ^ English [d3elætin]) where manner is in fact the less resistant. Instead, during loanword adaptation there is a clear tendency towards unmarkedness. My hypothesis is that languages overwhelmingly adapt with the goal of eliminating the complexities of the L2; a change that involves deletion instead of insertion of a marked feature is preferred. Furthermore, my thesis shows for the first time that a consonant is statistically most likely to be imported if its preferred adaptation strategy involves insertion of a marked feature (e.g. [+continuant] or [+voice]). For example, the adaptation of English /d3/ is /z/ in French after insertion of

marked [+continuant], but /d3/ is overwhelmingly imported (89%), instead of adapted in

French. I argue that this is to avoid the insertion of marked [+continuant]. This contrasts with Pennsylvania German (PG) where English /d3/ is rarely imported (10%). This is

because unlike in French, there is an option to adapt /d3/ to /tJ/ (deletion of marked

[+voice]) in PG. However, English word-initial /t/ is heavily imported (74%), not adapted, in PG because adaptation to /d/ involves insertion of marked [+voice]. Not only does my thesis better determine the direction of adaptations but it also establishes the circumstances where L2 consonants are most likely to be imported instead of being adapted, on the basis of a well-known notion in phonology: markedness.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS... VII LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS... XIII

Ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s ... x v

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION... 1

CHAPITRE 2: THE PROBLEM AND BACKGROUND ISSU E S... 9

2.1 The Too-Many-Solutions problem ... 10

2.1.1 The Too-Many-Solutions problem in T C ... 10

2.1.2 The Too-Many-Solutions problem in O T... 12

2.2 Flexibility and the hypothesis of variable resistance...14

2.2.1 The hypothesis of the greater flexibility of place and laryngeal features...16

2.3 The hypothesis of movement towards the unmarked in loanword adaptation...17

2.4 The hypothesis of the phonological adaptation of loanwords... 20

2.4.1 The phonological adaptation of loanwords in the TC framework...22

2.5 Phonetic approach to illicit phoneme adaptation...23

2.5.1 How phonetic approximation works... 23

2.5.2 The manifestations of phonetic approximation... 25

2.6 Critique of the phonetic adaptation approach...27

2.6.1 Categorical Preservation Principle... 29

2.6.2 Systematic adaptation... 32

2.7 Intentional phonetic approximation: Core and periphery... 33

CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL FRAMEW ORK... 37

3.1 Segmental representations... 37 3.1.1 Feature geometry...37 3.1.2 Radical Underspecification... 39 3.2 Phonological processes: TC... 47 3.2.1 Overview of T C ... 47 3.2.1.1 Minimality Principle... 49 3.2.1.2 Preservation Principle... 51 3.2.1.3 Precedence Convention... 53

3.2.1.4 Low rates of deletion... 53

3.2.1.5 Non-availability Principle... 55

3.2.1.7 Threshold Principle...59

3.2.1.8 Conclusion... 62

CHAPTER 4: PERCEPTUAL SALIENCE... 63

Introduction...63

4.1 Perceptual salience and the notion of distinctiveness (difference and dissimilarity) .65 4.1.1 Salience as distinctiveness: contrast of an element with another element or with a zero-element... 65

4.1.2 Salience as distinctiveness: contrast of an element with its environment...67

4.1.3 Perceptual salience and the notion of recoverability (or sensitivity)...6 8 4.1.4 Perceptual salience and the notion of robustness...69

4.2 Discussion... 70

4.2.1 Dissimilarity, easy recoverability and robustness: one unified concept... 71

4.2.2 Areas of disagreement over use of the term perceptual salience...71

4.3 What evidence is used to establish perceptual salience?...73

4.3.1 Non-phonological evidence... 74

4.3.1.1 Evidence from distribution frequency of contrasts in language inventories 74 4.3.1.2 Evidence from L1 language acquisition... 75

4.3.1.3 Evidence from imperfect rhymes...75

4.3.1.4 Establishing perceptual salience based on confusion and similarity studies 75 4.3.1.5 Establishing perceptual salience based on recoverability and identification studies... 76

4.3.1.6 Establishing perceptual salience based on presence or absence of acoustic cues...76

4.3.2 Phonological evidence... 78

4.3.2.1 Evidence from allomorphy... 78

4.3.2.2 Evidence from assimilation asymmetries... 79

4.3.2.3 Evidence from CV syllable... 80

4.3.2.4 Evidence from epenthesis... 80

4.3.2.5 Evidence from metathesis...81

4.3.2.6 Evidence from deletion...81

4.4 Conclusion... 82

CHAPTER 5: MARKEDNESS... 85

Introduction...85 5.1 The role of the notion of markedness: To what does the notion of markedness respond?...8 6

5.1.1 Language-internal asymmetries... 87

5.1.2 Language-external asymmetries... 89

5.2 Debate surrounding markedness: the relevancy of markedness in phonology...90

5.3 Markedness at the phonological feature level...93

5.3.1 Markedness and the underspecification of features...95

5.3.2 Markedness and the combination of features... 96

5.4 Markedness and its incorporation in TC...98

5.4.1 Markedness encoded through parameter settings...98

5.5 Markedness and its incorporation in Optimality Theory... 101

5.5.1 Brief overview of OT... 101

5.5.2 How markedness works in O T ... 104

5.5.3 External markedness hierarchies and limiting possible constraints... 106

5.6 Comparison between markedness in OT and in TC and consequences that the differences im ply...1 1 0 5.6.1 Constraints and markedness in OT and T C ... 110

5.6.1.1 Variation in language: due to variable responses to offers of complexity or to variable constraint rankings?...1 1 0 5.6.1.2 The role of constraints: filters or “triggers” of repair?... 111

5.6.1.3 Descriptive or explanatory?... 112

5.6.2 TC and RU representational complexity and OT markedness hierarchies... 113

5.7 Conclusion... 118

CHAPTER 6: CORPUS AND METHODOLOGY... 119

6.1. The corpus... 119

6.1.1 Gathering of the database of the Project CoPho... 121

6.1.2 Consonantal malformations and importations... 122

6.2 Methodology...123

CHAPTER 7: RESULTS AND ANALYSIS REGARDING THE RELATIVE FLEXIBILITY OF FEATURES ... 127

Introduction...127

7.1 Consonant adaptations targeting manner features versus those targeting only non­ manner features in my corpus - general statistics...129

7.2 Comparison of manner features with individual non-manner features...135

7.2.1 Comparison of repairs with a choice between targeting place [±anterior] and manner [±continuant] in the corpus: results and analysis... 135

7.2.2 Repairs with a choice between [¿continuant], [±strident] and the Place of

articulation node in the corpus: results and analysis...140

7.2.2.1 Adaptation of /0/ and /ô/ in various languages... 143

7.2.3 Repairs with a choice between non-manner [±voice] and manner [¿continuant] in the corpus: results and analysis... 146

7.2.3.1 Adaptation of French */3/ in (Canadian) English...148

7.2.3.2 Adaptation of */v/ in Moroccan Arabic...149

7.2.4 The manner feature [±nasal]... 151

7.2.4.1 Repairs on the basis of laryngeal [±voice] as opposed to manner [+nasal] 152 7.3 Consonant adaptations involving the insertion of a marked feature resulting in a more marked consonant versus delinking of a marked feature resulting in a less marked consonant in the corpus - general statistics...158

7. 4 Discussion and conclusion... 165

Ch a p t e r 8: m a r k e d n e s s a n d p r e d i c t i o n s o n p h o n e m e i m p o r t a t i o n... 167 Introduction... 167 8.1 Sociolinguistic factors...169 8.2 Phonological factors... 169 8.3 Differential importation...170 8.3.1 Miscellaneous factors... 170

8.3.2 The hypothesis of gaps in the phonological system ... 170

8.4 Importation and markedness: importation to avoid insertion of a marked feature ... 172

8.5 Importation and markedness: further tie s ... 182

8.5.1 Cross-linguistically common consonants are more likely to be imported than are rare consonants with highly marked feature combinations... 182

8.5.2 Gutturals are marked and consequently rarely imported...185

8 . 6 The ill-formed phonemes */d3/ and */t/ in Pennsylvania G erm an... 186

8.6.1 General phonological information...188

8.6.2 Predictions of MH1 versus the gap-filling hypothesis... 191

8.6.3 Loanwords in Pennsylvania German...191

8.6.4 The stop */t/ in word-initial position...193

8.6.5 The affricate */d3/ ...197

8.6 . 6 Analysis of */d3/ in loanwords from English in Druckenbrod (1981), an oral corpus...204

8.6.7 Adaptation patterns for */z/...205

8.6 . 8 Conclusion... 207

CHAPTER 9: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION... 211

REFERENCES ... 215

APPENDIX I... 241

LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

/ / Phonological form

[ ] Phonetic form

becomes or is pronounced

IPA International Phonetic Alphabet

ATR Advanced tongue root

C Coda or consonant

CC Geminate consonants

CI Calabrese Italian

CoMP Competence, Conflation, Hierarchy Conflict, Markedness, and Preservation of the Marked

CoPho Research project on phonological constraints in phonology lead by Carole Paradis at Université Laval

CPGD The Comprehensive Pennsylvania German Dictionary, vol. 1­

1 1.

g.c. Glottal constriction

GFH Gap-filling hypothesis

H in regards to tones, high

PLH Phonological level hierarchy

HGR Hypothesis of the greater resistance of manner features

L1 Borrowing language or first language

L2 Source language or second language

M metrical

MA Moroccan Arabic

MH Hypothesis of the role of markedness in foreign phoneme

importation

MH1 Hypothesis that a phoneme is more likely to be imported if its adaptation results in a more marked phoneme and conversely a phoneme is less likely to be imported if its adaptation results in a less marked phoneme

MH2 Hypothesis that importation is least likely to occur when phonemes have highly marked feature combinations

MRH Hypothesis of markedness reduction in loanword adaptation

MS Mexican Spanish

N Syllable nucleus

O Syllable onset

OCP Obligatory Contour Principle

OT Optimality Theory

P Place node

PG Pennsylvania German

Q first half of a geminate obstruent

R Rime

RTR Retracted tongue root

RU Radical Underspecification

RS Repair strategy

TC Theory of Constraints and Repair Strategies

UG Universal Grammar

V Vowel

V: Long vowel

VOT Voice Onset Time

VRF Hypothesis of the variable resistance of features during the phonological adaptation of loanwords

Ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s

I would first like to thank my thesis director, Carole Paradis. Thank you for your advice, patience, and guidance. Thank you for all the time you put into this thesis and all the comments over the years. Thank you also for encouraging me to have confidence in putting forth my ideas. I also greatly appreciate the opportunities you gave me to work as a research assistant as well as as a teaching auxiliary. I will keep with me all the valuable experience I have gained from working with you.

I would also like to thank Darlene LaCharité who read several versions of this paper, and who accepted to do the prereading in her busy schedule, and for her numerous comments and words of encouragement along the way including the time she spent discussing my thesis with me even during her sabbatical. I would like to thank Johanna-Pascale Roy who never hesitated to take time out of her schedule if I ever needed advice. I would also like to thank Heather Goad, the external evaluator, who along with Darlene LaCharité and Johanna-Pascale Roy, evaluated this thesis. I would also like to thank Shahrzad Saif who along with Carole Paradis and Darlene LaCharité, gave me an opportunity as a teaching auxiliary.

I would like to thank the numerous people who have worked within the CoPho Project who have assisted me over the years, particularly Félix Desmeules-Trudel, Léonie Bourassa, Catherine Lévesque, Linda Lambert and Kym Charland-Chauvette. I would also like to thank Amal Zgati, Ariane Royer, who read various early versions of my chapters, Rima Hatoum, Iraz Alper, Annie Lévesque for helping when I needed someone to look over my French, and everyone else who encouraged me throughout my PhD.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

When a borrowed word enters into another language, the form of the word is normally changed (adapted) in order to fit foreign elements to the phonological system of the borrowing language (L1); e.g. French ‘déjà vu’ [de3avy] ^ [de3avu] in English. Previous

research has shown that these changes are widely predictable and that they are conditioned by several principles including the Preservation Principle, which states that phoneme insertion has precedence over phoneme deletion, and the Minimality Principle, which predicts that an adaptation should be the least costly in terms of structure and processes as possible (Paradis and LaCharité 1997, among others). However, often more than one change can be considered minimal. Is the choice in such cases arbitrary or can it be predicted? Recently, some authors (e.g. Miao 2005; Steriade 2001b, 2009), working in an Optimality Theory (OT) framework, have proposed that during the adaptation process of a foreign phoneme, the phonological features of manner of articulation are more resistant to change than are the phonological features of voice and place of articulation. Steriade (2001b, 2009) proposes that the least perceptible phonological feature will be changed and specifically looks at word-final position and states that manner feature changes are more perceptible and thus less likely to occur than place or laryngeal changes. According to Miao, manner features such as [¿continuant] and [±nasal] are more resistant to modification cross-linguistically in all positions than are place and laryngeal features (2005). Although not formalized in Miao (2005), I formally define this proposal in (1).

(1) Hypothesis of the greater resistance of manner features (henceforth HGR)

An adaptation implicating the modification (insertion or the deletion) of x will be preferred over an adaptation involving a modification of y, if x is a place or laryngeal feature and y is a manner feature.

This thesis deals with the resistance of certain consonantal features to deletion and insertion during the phonological adaptation of loanwords. It also looks at the possible role of markedness at the featural level in the loanword adaptation of consonants. My corpus includes the repertoire of malformations of the Project CoPho loanword database and other

sources as described in chapter 6 . 1 In total, this repertoire comprises over 50,000 forms and

over 33,000 phonological adaptations from loanwords in the main and targeted corpora from Project CoPho and elsewhere. My corpus includes consonantal malformations in loanwords from English or French in diverse languages: Quebec French, France French, Japanese, Fula, Mexican Spanish, Calabrese Italian, Canadian English, Moroccan Arabic, Lingala and Kinyarwanda. It also includes data from various Project CoPho targeted corpora of loanwords in various languages along with data provided by Ulrich (1997) for Lama, and data provided by Leslau (1997) for Afar. My study is planted in the framework of the Theory o f Constraints and Repair Strategies (TC) of Paradis (1988a, b, 1990, 1993, among others). This theory establishes that loanword adaptation is both greatly predictable and regular. In sum, loanword adaptations are governed by four principles. These are the Minimality Principle, the Preservation Principle, the Threshold Principle and the Non­ availability Principle. It was stated earlier that the Minimality Principle, which is explored in more detail in section 3.2.1.1, predicts that a repair should be the least costly. It does so by stipulating that a repair strategy target the lowest level to which a violated constraint refers and that it must also involve the least number of steps possible. In this study, I investigate the relative resistance of features when more than one minimal adaptation is possible. I also investigate whether markedness plays a role at the featural level in loanword adaptation. Up until now, no research study has attempted to look at loanword adaptation strategies at the level of the relative resistance of features with a corpus as large and as diversified as mine. Furthermore, few studies have taken a look at the role of markedness at the featural level in loanword adaptation, and no study has ever taken a look at the role of markedness in relation to minimality. My ultimate goal is to look into whether we can make more precise predictions concerning loanword adaptations than is already possible.

The specific objectives of my thesis are to determine, for each foreign consonant in my corpus, what are the possible minimal adaptations; to verify if certain adaptation

1 Project CoPho (Constraints in Phonology) is a project focused on the role of constraints

strategies at the featural level are preferred to others by examining if certain features are more flexible, that is, to determine whether some have a greater tendency to be modified than others; to test the hypothesis that claims that manner features are less flexible (more resistant) than are laryngeal and place features (Steriade 2001b, 2009 and Miao 2005: 50 for Mandarin Chinese). My final objective is to discover if, besides sociolinguistic factors such as prestige of the L2, ideals about language purity and both the level and rate of bilingualism in a linguistic community (see section 8.1), whether there are also

phonological factors related to markedness that can help us predict which phonemes are most likely to be imported. I present these objectives formally in (2).

(2) The objectives of this study are to :

a) determine for each L2 consonant in my corpus what are the possible minimal adaptations;

b) verify if certain adaptation strategies at the featural level are preferred compared to others by examining if certain features are more flexible, that is to say, more vulnerable to insertion or deletion;

c) test the hypothesis in (1) that states that phonological features of manner of

articulation (e.g. [±nasal], [±lateral], [±sonorant], [±strident] and [¿continuant]) are more resistant to modification during loanword adaptation than are place of articulation features (e.g. Labial, Dorsal, Coronal and [±anterior]) and laryngeal features (e.g. [±glottal constriction] and [±voice]) and show that manner is in fact not more resistant than non-manner;

d) show that phonological adaptation of L2 consonants in loanwords results in less- marked L1 consonants, i.e. show that there is a movement towards the unmarked in phonological adaptations;

e) show that markedness factors play a role in differential importation rates.

I define in (3) what is meant by a lexical loanword. The definition employed here is that used in Paradis and LaCharité (1997: 391).

(3) Definition of a loanword

An individual L2 word, or compound functioning as a single word, which a) is incorporated into the discourse of L1, the recipient language; b) has a mental representation in L1 (as opposed to code-switches);

c) is made to conform with at least the outermost peripheral phonological constraints of L1, which represent absolute constraints in L1.

The problematic structures that frequently occur in loanwords and which cause a loanword to be phonologically ill-formed in the L1 are called malformations or phonological malformations. In (4), I present the definition of a phonological malformation.

(4) Phonological malformation

An element (phoneme, accent, tone, etc.) or a structure (syllabic, metric, etc.) from the L2 that does not exist in the phonology of the L1.

To summarize, I want to verify in this study if the hypothesis of the relative flexibility / resistance of certain features can help us to understand why certain adaptations might be preferred to others in loanwords in general, as well as to look at the possible role of markedness. My objectives aim to refine the way we are able to predict preferred minimal adaptations, by examining the possible variable resistance of features as well as the role of markedness at the featural level.

We will see that my results indicate, first of all, that the hypothesis of Steriade and Miao is often invalidated. I will suggest that Miao’s results, according to which laryngeal and place of articulation features are less resistant to modification compared to manner of articulation features, could be due to the fact that the loanword corpus of Mandarin Chinese, used to support her hypothesis, is not purely phonological. In addition, Mandarin Chinese exploits numerous points of articulation (more than the average cross- linguistically), which could explain why a change in place of articulation in Mandarin Chinese is more frequent than a change in manner in the loanword adaptations of her corpus. According to Miao’s analysis for example, Mandarin Chinese has three series of

alveolar, retroflex and alveopalatal sibilants (Miao 2005: 40). This provides numerous opportunities for a change to place and is not representative of the majority of languages. Thus, I leave open the possibility that the quantity of options, not only the quality, can influence the prevalence of adaptations involving, for example, place features.

My hypothesis, however, is that when the number of possible place of articulation options is standard in loanword adaptation, manner of articulation features are not more resilient to change than are other feature classes. Instead, I will suggest that loanword adaptation eliminates marked features and results in less marked structures, a hypothesis that will be formally presented in (5) below. I base this on a detailed analysis of my corpus.

In order to fulfill my objectives, I have proceeded as follows: first I have gathered the phonological adaptations from my corpus (the Project CoPho loanword database and other sources previously mentioned), from which I have selected the cases of adaptations of ill-formed consonants, excluding other adaptations, such as syllabic and accentual adaptations; second, I have compiled the possible minimal adaptations for each individual case of a consonantal malformation; third, I have studied the behaviour of the features implicated in the chosen repair strategy. My analysis will permit us to make more precise predictions in regards to the adaptation of loanwords.

A careful study of my data indicates that manner of articulation features, such as [¿continuant], are just as likely to be involved in the adaptation process as are laryngeal features, such as [±voice], and place of articulation features, such as [±anterior]. For example, French /z/ is usually not tolerated at the beginning of a word in English. Adaptation options include /z/ ^ [z] (change of place), /z/ ^ [J] (change of voicing) and /z/ ^ [d3] (change of continuancy). The primary adaptation is /z/ ^ [d3] (e.g. French gelatin]

gélatine ^ English [d3ebtin]) where the manner feature is in fact the least resistant. In Moroccan Arabic the primary adaptation of ill-formed /v/ in French loanwords is to [b] (change of continuancy), 58/81 cases, 72%, despite the availability of /v/ ^ [f] (change of voicing) (e.g. [savo] ^ [sabun] ^ *[safun]). In my data, the feature [¿continuant] is modified slightly over the rate of that of the place feature [±anterior]. For instance, it is

shown in section 4.1 that when a language had the choice, for a given ill-formed phoneme, between the adaptation targeting [¿continuant] and another targeting [±anterior], in 195/384 cases (51%) the feature [¿continuant] was changed as opposed to 189/384 cases (49%) where [¿anterior] was modified. Thus [¿continuant] does not show more resistance to change.

Instead of manner features being more resilient, the adaptation patterns show that what is at work is a movement towards the unmarked. In other words, consistent with the hypothesis of markedness reduction (MRH) formally presented in (5), a repair deleting marked information present in the input is most often preferred to a repair inserting marked information. We observe that during loanword adaptation there is a clear tendency towards unmarkedness.

(5) Hypothesis of markedness reduction in loanword adaptation (henceforth MRH) Languages overwhelmingly adapt with the goal of eliminating the complexities of the second language (L2); change that involves the elimination of marked features is preferred to the addition of marked features, or complexity.

For instance, we see that [¿continuant] is rarely inserted in order to repair a problematic phoneme, yet it is regularly deleted. Also, my data includes only rare cases where a language adds the complexity of nasality or [¿lateral] to a non-nasal or non-lateral even when the option of repair by insertion of [¿nasal] or [¿lateral] is available (e.g.*/b/ ^ [p], not *[m] in Lama as in French Zébédée [zebede] ^ Lama [sepete], not *[semete]; see Ulrich 1997).

Furthermore, my data indicates that the cases in my corpus where the preferred adaptation strategy available would yield the insertion of a marked feature such as [¿continuant] are also typically the foreign phonemes where the importation levels are the highest. For example, /d;z/, in the rare cases where it is adapted, becomes [3] in French via

insertion of [¿continuant]. However, this is overwhelmingly avoided through importation. This hypothesis is formulated in (6).

(6) Hypothesis of the role of markedness in foreign phoneme importation (MH)

a) A phoneme is more likely to be imported if its adaptation results in a more marked phoneme and conversely a phoneme is less likely to be imported if its adaptation results in a less marked phoneme (MH1);

b) Importation is least likely to occur when L2 phonemes have highly marked feature combinations (are cross-linguistically rare) (MH2).

An importation occurs when an L2 phoneme that does not exist in the L1 phonology remains unaltered in the L1. For example, /a/ in French croissant /kKwasa/ often remains unaltered in English despite the nasal vowel being ill-formed in English. Importation results from intentional phonetic approximation (LaCharité and Paradis 2005: 224; see section 2.6) and yields the presence of a peripheral phoneme in the L1 as opposed to a core one (Paradis and Lebel 1994a; see also Itô and Mester 1986). Typically phonological constraints of the L1 are weakened or are no longer active in the periphery as will be discussed in section 2.7.

Although in this study we are especially interested in the role of phonology in dealing with malformations in loanwords, I would also like to mention the role of non- phonological factors in the treatment of malformations. For instance, sociological factors such as the prestige of the L2, whether speakers have a purist or non-purist attitude towards the L1, the rate of bilingualism, and the nature of the periphery (formally presented in section 2.7), have all been shown to play a strong role, especially in regards to importation rates. For example, Paradis and LaCharité (2012b) demonstrate that the prestige of the L2 plays the key role in determining whether L2 interdentals /0/ and /ô/ are adapted as /t/, /d/

or are improperly imported as /s/, /z/. Other more minor non-phonological influences on the treatment of loanwords include the influence of orthography, the influence of a third language and analogy. In order to measure the importance of these factors, the CoPho

Project has tried to establish a way in which to identify these non-phonological cases in order to determine their importance. In Paradis and LaCharité (2008) it was found that orthography in English loanwords in Old Quebec French influenced only 0.5% of cases (2/401). In Recent Quebec City French the rate of influence was only slightly higher at 1.2% (24/2,077) of all cases of ill-formed phonemes and in recent Montreal French the rate was a mere 0.7% (13/1,939) (Paradis and LaCharité 2008: 101). These statistics go against Vendelin & Peperkamp (2006), among others, according to whom orthography plays an important role in loanword adaptation. In fact, the average rate of the influence of orthography in the entire Project CoPho loanword database is only 1.9% of phoneme malformations (Paradis and LaCharité 2011: 764).

My thesis is divided into nine chapters. In chapter 2, I present the problem and background issues. I describe the phonological adaptation hypothesis as well as the variable flexibility of features hypothesis. The framework I employ is presented in chapter 3. This chapter presents the general theoretical notions and the phonological representations employed in the TC framework. In chapter 4, I present an overview of the notion of perceptual salience. Chapter 5 deals with the notion of markedness. The methodology and the database are presented in chapter 6. An analysis of consonant malformations and their

adaptations and their results is provided in chapter 7. In this chapter, I analyze the flexibility of features in the adaptations with a focus on the flexibility of manner features compared to place and laryngeal features. In chapter 8, I look at the evidence for a

movement to the unmarked in the overall treatment of loanwords. My conclusions are presented in chapter 9.

CHAPITRE 2: THE PROBLEM AND BACKGROUND ISSUES

As mentioned in chapter 1, Paradis and LaCharité (1997), who helped develop the TC framework, have noted that ill-formed phonemes in loanwords are adapted, in the vast majority of cases, phonologically rather than phonetically, and that adaptations are greatly predictable and regular (Paradis and LaCharité 1997, 2001; LaCharité and Paradis 2000b, 2005, among others). These authors have formalized several principles governing loanword adaptations. I briefly presented these principles in Chapter 1. One of these principles is the Minimality Principle, formally presented in section 3.2.1.1. To recap, this principle proposes that a violated constraint is repaired at the lowest level to which a violated constraint refers, and claims that the repair strategy employed will involve the least number of steps possible.

However, what is of interest to us here is that there often exists, for one problematic phoneme, more than one possible minimal adaptation in a same language which leaves us with as yet no principled way of deciding between apparently equally minimal repairs. This is what Steriade (2009: 154) justifiably calls the t o o - m a n y - s o l u t i o n s problem. Although

she does not provide a formal definition of the problem, I present in (1) a tentative formalization based on Steriade (2009).

(1) The Too-Many-Solutions problem (adapted from Steriade 2009: 152, 154)

Occurs when for a given constraint violation, more than one grammatical repair strategy is conceivable as a response.

As noted in chapter 1, one strategy proposed by some phonologists working in the framework of OT is the hypothesis that certain features are more resistant during phonological processes than are others. This is intended to reduce the number of predicted phonological processes and ideally to explain the preferred one. One of the objectives of this study is to investigate the Too-Many-Solutions problem and the solutions proposed by some authors working in OT and show that their solutions miss an important generalization that emerges when a larger, more varied corpus of adaptations is studied. As was mentioned

in the introduction, no previous study has attempted to verify if certain minimal repair strategies universally favour the involvement of certain features over others and, if so, whether an explanation of this state of affairs exists.

In this chapter, first I will explore some background to the Too-Many-Solutions problem in TC and OT. Second, I will look at the proposed solution of variable resistance of some phonological features. Third, I will look briefly at attempts to explain loanword repair strategies by movement to the unmarked as it has been dealt with so far. Finally, I will look at evidence for the phonological (as opposed to the perceptual) adaptation of loanwords. Phonology is implied if markedness factors are to play a role in loanword adaptation.

2.1 The Too-Many-Solutions problem

2.1.1 The Too-Many-Solutions problem in TC

As already mentioned, there is often more than one minimal adaptation possible for a given problematic phoneme according to the minimality principle (in TC). For instance, we have already seen that the phoneme */p/ from French which is ill-formed in Moroccan Arabic could be minimally adapted into at least two phonemes, /b/ or /f/, both of which occur in Moroccan Arabic. Goulet (2001), in a study of English loanwords in Japanese, qualified as arbitrary the choice of one repair strategy over another: "The choice of one minimal strategy rather than another seems arbitrary in our database" (Goulet, 2001: 111) . 2

Sometimes those working in the TC framework invoke cultural or sociolinguistic reasons in order to explain the choice of one adaptation over another when more than one possibility is minimal. For instance, Fecteau (1998) in a study of English loanwords in Mexican Spanish, proposes that */z/ is repaired by becoming /s/ as opposed to /d/ and that */a/ is

2 “Le choix d’une stratégie minimale plutôt qu’une autre semble toutefois arbitraire dans

repaired into /o/ and not /a/ for cultural reasons. According to Fecteau (1998): “It is highly likely that the choice between two adaptations is cultural as is often the case when several competing strategies exist” (Fecteau 1998: 78-79).3 Lamoureux (2000) goes in the same direction to explain the adaptation pattern of French */y/ to /u/ as opposed to /i/ in Canadian English. According to Lamoureux: “it is probably due to a social convention, as is often the case when two strategies are equally minimal” 4 (Lamoureux 2000: 91).

Paradis and LaCharité (1997) speculate that certain minimal adaptations that are chosen over other available minimal adaptations could derive from the Preservation Principle (formally presented in (19) Chapter 3), a principle that if applied at the featural level, may suggest we should expect a repair that inserts new material rather than a strategy that results in the loss of phonological information. More specifically, they suggest this possibility in order to explain the adaptation of Fula */v/ to /w/, which requires the insertion of [¿sonorant], as opposed to an adaptation to /b/, which would require the delinking of [¿continuant], and as opposed to /f/, which would require the delinking of [¿voice] (Paradis and LaCharité 1997: 404-405).

Despite the lack of precision present in TC in precisely predicting the choice of adaptation strategy when it comes to features, the present ability of the TC framework to eliminate most unlikely adaptation strategies currently does a much better job at dealing with the Too-Many-Solutions problem than does the OT framework, the framework adopted by Steriade and Miao. The Too-Many-Solutions problem is a much larger issue in OT where it has been dealt with more widely, as we will see in the next section.

3 “Il est fort possible que le choix entre les deux adaptations soit culturel comme c’est

souvent le cas lorsqu’il existe plusieurs stratégies minimales concurrentes.” (Fecteau 1998: 78-79).

4 “Il s’agit probablement d’une convention sociale, comme c’est souvent le cas lorsque

2.1.2 The Too-Many-Solutions problem in O T

The Too-Many-Solutions problem has been raised for OT by, among others, LaCharite and Paradis (2000a), Steriade (2001a), Croft (2003), and de Lacy (2006, 2007a, b). Croft (2003: 85-86), for example, states that “[...] grammatical structures are determined by a language- specific ranking of constraints, and not a universal procedure of counting (or weighting) constraints. Hence, OT in its present form does not account for the skewed distribution of structural types in the world’s languages.” Very briefly, how OT operates is that an input or deep form (underlying form) enters into a module called Gen, which generates an indefinite collection of candidates representing potential output or surface forms. This list of candidates enters into an evaluation module called Eval. Eval, in order to determine the optimal candidate, employs a hierarchical system of universal constraints, called (Con). The operation of OT is schematized in (2) (for a more detailed overview of OT see section 5.5).

(2) Brief schema of OT Underlying form U Gen U Infinite set of candidates (surface forms) U Eval U Optimal candidate

In OT the Too-Many-Solutions problem is simply a direct result of the power of Gen, which is theoretically limitless in its ability to generate an infinite number of forms and of the lack of any mechanism to restrict the ordering of constraints apart from a fixed ordering in each language. In an attempt to limit OT’s production so that OT makes more precise predictions and is less powerful, various solutions have been proposed. The crux of the problem for OT is that given Gen’s capacity to generate an infinite number of candidates and a language’s ability to order its constraints, it is disturbingly problematic that the same few solutions recur cross-linguistically. Solutions include restrictions from perception, which will be the focus of section 2.2, and the incorporation of marking

restrictions (see section 5.5.3). In 5.5.3 we will see that the idea of markedness hierarchies, such as those proposed by de Lacy (2006, 2007a, b), is one way to address this issue without, as he claims, limiting the free-ranking properties of OT, and without weighting constraints, and thereby making markedness constraints more restricted.

As noted above, notions such as perceptual salience hierarchies have been invoked to address the Too-Many-Solutions problem. Steriade incorporates perceptual salience into a grammatical model and employs perceptual salience in order to explain the Too-Many- Solutions problem that has plagued OT since its conception. According to Steriade, the optimal solution to a violated phoneme constraint should be the least perceptually salient option (see chapter 4). Thus, for example, perceptual salience is employed to explain why a repair targeting nasality is not preferred to a repair favouring a modification of voicing in the case of a voiced coronal stop in coda position in German (i.e. the neutralization of /b/ ^ [p], not ^ * [m ], as in glau/b/en ‘to believe’ ^ glau[p]lich ‘believable’, *glau[m]lich). As we will see in chapter 4, this preference for changes to voicing over nasality is also evidenced outside phonology, according to Steriade, in imperfect rhymes. For instance, rhyming wise ([z]#) with price ([s]#) occurs much more frequently than rhymes that differ by nasality, a manner feature (for example, rhyming mid (/d/) with sin (/n/) (Steriade 2009: 159)). De Lacy (2007a) mentions that OT has lead to an increase in studies on perceptual distinctiveness.

2.2 Flexibility and the hypothesis of variable resistance

The notion of perceptual salience, (see chapter 4 for a detailed discussion of perceptual salience) has become a prominent term in the phonology literature with the advent of a “ [...] revived interest in the role of perception in a variety of phonological phenomena” (Wright 2001: 252). In the literature there are three major themes or notions that recur when the notion of perceptual salience is discussed. These three notions correspond to implicit definitions of perceptual salience. They are not mutually exclusive. These three notions are, a) dissimilarity; b) recoverability, c) robustness. Perceptual salience has been evoked by such authors as Steriade (2001b, 2009), Hsieh et al. (2009) and Yip (1993), among many others. Hsieh et al. (2009) identify perceptual salience as a determining factor in the direction of adaptations. For Shinohara (2006), Adler (2006) and Yip (1993; 2002), salience plays a determining role in patterns of phoneme deletion (although they do not necessarily agree over whether or not it is the only factor). According to, for instance, Uffmann (2006) and Shinohara (1997), the epenthetic vowel is determined by perceptual salience.

Steriade (2001b, 2009), Broselow (1999), Miao (2005), and Kenstowicz (2003) propose that certain phonological features are more “changeable” or flexible than others. For example, Broselow (1999) in a study of Selayarese adaptations in loanwords observed that place and voice features are less resistant to change than are manner features like [¿continuant] and [±nasal]. Kenstowicz (2003) observed that the manner feature nasality has a greater resistance to modification than voicing in the adaptation of loanwords in Fijian. Similarly, a study by Miao on loanwords in Mandarin Chinese shows that manner features are those, which are the most anchored and the least susceptible to modifications. These limits are claimed to come from perception and are thus exterior to phonology.

Miao (2005) proposes that the perceptual differences provoked by changes to manner of articulation are more important than are the perceptual differences implicated in a modification of Place, voicing or aspiration. Miao proposes that the flexibility of laryngeal features such as voicing and aspiration and features of Place is universally greater than is

the flexibility of features of manner such as [strident], [±continuant], [±nasal] and [±lateral] (Miao, 2005: 50). Miao also notes that previous studies indicate that a voicing distinction is perceived as less distinctive, for example, than an opposition based on occlusion, no matter the context, “[...] voicing is, in any context, perceived as less distinctive than contrasts based on obstruency differences [...]” (Steriade 2009: 21).

Reasons for the claimed greater resistance of manner features in (1) (H1 in chapter 1) are based in large part on the notion that a modification to manner features is avoided in repair since manner features have greater perceptual salience. Instead, a change involving a place or laryngeal feature is claimed by some, such as Steriade (2001b, 2009) and Miao (2005), to be less perceptible and thus less resistant when involved in a repair process. In other words, they propose that a modification that targets manner features is more distinctive on a perceptual level than is a change of voice or place. For example, Steriade (2009) is concerned about whether a given change results in a salient modification of the input (Steriade 2009). In fact, one of the reasons for the recent interest in perceptual salience is that some authors such as Steriade maintain that rankings in OT are (or should be) restricted or motivated to some extent by perceptual salience. That is to say, constraints may be perceptually-based.

Among those whose ideas are used to support Miao and Steriade are Broselow (1999) and Kenstowicz (2003) as well as ideas that are presented in Bond (1999). According to Bond (1999), errors that are produced in informal conversation affect place of articulation more frequently than manner of articulation. Steriade leans also on Zwicky (1976), who in an analysis of imperfect and partial rhymes, found that, in English rhymes, there are more words that are rhymed despite a difference in voicing, as in for example, ride - right, than there are words that are rhymed despite a difference in nasality, such as in kid - kin.

According to Steriade (2009), the hypothesis that certain features are more resistant to modification is supported, for example, by studies such as that undertaken by Walden &

Montgomery (1975), which maintains that certain phonological features contribute more than others to impressions of similarity.

2.2.1 The hypothesis o f the greater flexibility o f place and laryngeal features

Miao does not formally present a hypothesis on the flexibility or the vulnerability of features, except to say that the idea springs from perceived variations in phoneme correspondences between the L1 and the L2 (Miao 2005: 48). As a formal definition is needed, I will define flexibility as being the tendency of a given phonological feature to be inserted or delinked in order to satisfy a constraint that has been violated by an ill-formed phoneme. I call it the hypothesis of the variable resistance of features, which is presented in (3). It stipulates that certain features have a greater tendency than others to be inserted or delinked during the repair of malformations, not necessarily non-manner features as maintained by HGR in (1), in chapter 1. As we can see, this hypothesis softens HGR.

(3) The hypothesis of the variable resistance of features during the phonological adaptations of loanwords (VRF):

Certain features universally have a greater tendency to be modified (inserted or delinked) during the adaptation of a problematic phoneme

VRF is less radical than HGR. HGR reflects Miao’s (2005) position that Place and Laryngeal features are less solid than are manner features: “[...] contrasts in manner are more perceptible, and hence more resistant to change, than contrasts in voicing and place” (Miao 2005: 50). As a consequence of their lower perceptual salience, Laryngeal and Place features are more likely to be targeted than are features of manner, “[...] voicing / aspiration and place features are more flexible than manner features” (Miao 2005: 50). VRF opens the debate and leads to new avenues, the most important being the role of markedness in the way features are treated in loanword adaptation.

2.3 The hypothesis of movement towards the unmarked in loanword adaptation

The notion of movement towards the unmarked in loanword adaptation has been explored only very briefly and not systematically, or it has simply been invoked as a possible explanation for loanword adaptation patterns by Kenstowicz (2005), Jurgec (2010) and Denzer-King (2010). Here I present an overview of some of their findings.

Kenstowicz (2005) and Jurgec (2010) propose that some languages (with few or no importations) have a smaller subset of phonemes available in loanwords than in the regular phonology (as opposed to languages with a larger set of phonemes in their loanword inventory due to importations). These authors define this smaller set of phonemes available for loanwords as movement towards the unmarked in loanword adaptation. This implies the alteration of L1 phonemes when found in loanwords, so that marked native phonemes or phoneme sequences in loanwords are adapted to lesser marked ones. Kenstowicz (2005) provides an example of the latter situation from Hungarian, where after a short stressed vowel a voiceless consonant is geminated in loanwords entering Hungarian, e.g. sweater ^ szvetter, despite the fact that the sound sequence prior to gemination is allowed. However he notes that in loanword adaptation gemination of voiced obstruents is totally absent despite the fact that the gemination of voiced obstruents occurs in the L1 (however no example is provided). He claims that the non-gemination of voiced obstruents in loanwords, despite its occurrence in the L1, is due to a separate rearranging of markedness constraints in the loanword phonology which experiences a return to the unmarked. In the same vein, Jurgec (2010: 149) states, “[t]he phonotactic requirements for loanwords may [...] be less restrictive than the ones for the native vocabulary.” According to Jurgec (2010: 149), “[t]he opposite pattern, in which loanwords only allow a subset of structures attested in native words, is crosslinguistically rare but attested [...].”

Although having a smaller subset of phonemes available to loanwords may be an example of movement towards the unmarked in loanword adaptation, one might argue that all these alleged examples of movement towards the unmarked in loanword adaptation would be better defined as examples of processes that either are no longer active in the

language, or that do not affect words in the periphery (the periphery is a phonological constraint domain where some or all phonological constraints may be weakened or deactivated; see section 2.7 for a more in-depth discussion of the periphery). That is to say, if an L2 phoneme or cluster that exists in the L1 is systematically changed into something else in the L1 (as in Hungarian), it is possible that the L1 phoneme in question results from a morphophonological process that is no longer active in the L1. This is not how I will define movement towards the unmarked. My definition of movement towards the unmarked will be synchronically, not diachronically, based.

For our purposes I define in (4) movement to the unmarked as occurring when L2 phonemes, whose adaptation provides a choice between two or more options, reduces complexity rather than adds complexity in the adaptation process.5

(4) Movement towards less markedness:

Occurs when a repair deletes a marked feature so that it is replaced with its unmarked counterpart, i.e., a feature or a feature combination less frequent cross- linguistically is replaced by a more frequent one.

This differs from previous studies in that I do not look at whether marked non­ problematic (non foreign) elements or processes are replaced with less marked elements or processes to determine movement to the unmarked. Instead, I focus on the treatment of illicit L2 consonants that are adapted in L1 to see if they are adapted into less marked consonants by delinking marked features.

As opposed to Kenstowicz (2005), Denzer-King (2010) argues against movement to phonological unmarkedness in a study on loanwords in Tlingit, a Na-Dené language spoken

5 I acknowledge that what exactly constitutes complexity is a current debate. Here and

elsewhere I use the term complexity interchangeably with markedness to avoid over­ repetition of the term markedness. As stated in (4), I assume here that markedness is principally based on typological frequency.

in southeast Alaska. According to Denzer-King (2010), loanword adaptation in Tlingit does not show evidence of retreat towards the unmarked since uvulars (that occur in the L1 as well as the L2), which are marked, are allowed to remain in the L1 phonological inventory of loanwords. For instance, he provides the example of [%] that remains unadapted in Tlingit, an example of which is Chinook Jargon /q’ala%an/ ^ Tlingit /q’ana%an/. Denzer- King (2010: 5) notes that since Tlingit, “[...] faithfully adapt[s] both the ejective uvular stop and the uvular fricative” of the L2, markedness does not play a role. He therefore concludes that, “[...] the strategy of ‘retreat to the unmarked’ does not seem to be operative in Na-Dene languages [...]” (Denzer-King 2010: 5). However, I disagree with Denzer- King’s interpretation since there is no phonologically based reason to expect an L2 phoneme that is not problematic in the L1 not to remain as is when present in a borrowing. In other words, I disagree with Denzer-King’s interpretation of movement to the unmarked. I propose that it is only possible to conclude that there is no movement to the unmarked values when an L2 phoneme is adapted into a phoneme that is more marked than is the ill- formed phoneme when a lesser-marked option is available and minimal (as in (4)).

In L2 acquisition, it has been argued that markedness plays a key role in determining which linguistic structures, including at phoneme level, will be acquired first, with unmarked structures being acquired before marked ones (Eckman 1977; Broselow 2004; Hsiao 2011). One study that is very interesting is Hsiao (2011). She posits that when Mandarin speakers speak Taiwanese or vice-versa the accent results from marked structures having been replaced with unmarked ones. As examples, Hsiao cites the rounding of the unrounded back vowels, monophthongization, the oralization of nasal vowels, and the emergence of the CV syllable. According to Hsiao (2011: 1486), “[...] accent is largely caused by avoidance of phonemes or syllable structures that are universally marked, and the adjustments of constraint ranking work towards the unmarked.” She states in her conclusion that language contact situations encourage the replacement of marked phonemes by the unmarked. It would be surprising to find a different situation in loanword adaptation as far as phoneme replacement is concerned.

2.4 The hypothesis of the phonological adaptation of loanwords

The Too-Many-Solution and markedness problems imply a perspective where loanwords are adapted phonologically. However, what is the phonological adaptation of loanwords? In short, it means the input to the L1 is the phonological form of the L2. The hypothesis of the phonological (versus phonetic) adaptation of loanwords has been supported as early as 1931 by Polivanov, a functionalist, who proposed that when someone hears a foreign word, “[...] we try to uncover the underlying phonological representations by unpacking the word into phonemes belonging to our first language, according to its laws governing the regrouping of phonemes” (Polivanov 1931: 80).

Among the first to clearly support the phonological adaptation of loanwords hypothesis are Hyman (1970), Kaye and Nykiel (1979), Danesi (1985), as well as Prunet (1990). More precisely, these authors consider the phonetic output to be a specified form to which applies the phonological constraints / rules of the L1. In other words, “[...] a source phonetic form is borrowed as a target phonological form” (Prunet 1990: 491).

Kaye and Nykiel (1979) show that loanwords can be classified into two categories. The first category of loanwords is composed of those that do not contain any foreign phoneme or structure (no malformation). Since they enter already conforming to the constraints of the L1, these loanwords can pass directly from the phonetic level of the L2 to the phonetic level of the L1. The second category is composed of loanwords that carry at least one problematic element or structure (at least one malformation). These are introduced to the phonological level of the L1 and must submit to the phonological constraints of the L1.

Haugen (1950) found that in the United States, there is a relationship between the phonological adaptation of loanwords and the degree of bilingualism of the L1 community and, in addition, that bilingual speakers are the ones who establish the phonological adaptation pattern or model for the linguistic community. He claims that it is possible to

divide a community’s bilingualism into three separate stages. These are the stages of weak, medium, and high bilingualism. According to Haugen, the stage of greatest bilingualism in a society is that which presents the most non-adaptations, that is, the importation without modification of foreign phonemes or structure.

The approach proposed by Paradis and LaCharité (1997) is that the output of the L2 (lexical or syntactic) is introduced directly into the L1. Basing their arguments on Weinreich (1968), sociolinguistic studies conducted by Haugan (1950), Grosjean (1982), Poplack et al. (1988) as well as Harriott and Cicochi (1993), among others, they conclude that bilingual speakers are those who borrow and have access to the phonological code of the L2. They note that according to Poplack et al., “The agents of introduction and, to some extent, transmission of borrowing within the community are more likely to be bilinguals or those in direct contact with the donor language and / or culture” (Poplack et al. 1988: 48).

I adopt the position of Paradis and LaCharité (1996, 1997), according to whom the phonetic output of the L2 is not taken to be the phonological form that is introduced into the L1, but rather it is the lexical or syntactic output, and that this output is evaluated against the phonological constraints of the L1 by the bilinguals who borrow. In so doing, all problematic phonemes will be adapted unless they are imported into the periphery (as already mentioned, the notion of the periphery is discussed in section 2.7). In order to illustrate this hypothesis, Paradis and LaCharité (1997) propose a model of loanword integration that is based on the lexical models of Mohanan (1982) and Kiparsky (1985). This model is presented in (5).

(5) Model of loanword integration in the lexical phonology (Paradis and LaCharite 1997: 394) L2 L1 Restricted dictionary

1

1

/

/

Lexical and postlexical Lexical and postlexical

levels levels

I

Phonetic level

Note that, as explained in Paradis and LaCharité (1997), the lexical and postlexical levels of the L2 are united together in (3), because it is not yet established whether it is the lexical level or the postlexical level that is incorporated into the restricted dictionary of the L1 (Paradis and LaCharité 1997: 395) or whether it can vary from one language to another or even one loanword to another.

2.4.1 The phonological adaptation o f loanwords in the TC framework

According to Paradis and LaCharité (1996, 1997, 2001), problematic structures from the L2, that is, those which violate one or several phonological constraints of the L1, if not imported, are nearly always adapted by a repair strategy with the goal of making the structures conform to the constraints of the L1. Thanks to phonological studies of loanwords undertaken in the TC framework (see, among others, Roy 1991, 1992, Paradis et al. 1993, Lebel 1994, Paradis and Lebel 1994a, b, Rose 1995, Paradis 1995a, b, 1996, Paradis and Rose 1995, Paradis and LaCharité 1996, 1997, 2001, Paradis and Fecteau 1997, Paradis and Lebel 1997, Paradis and Prunet 1998, 2000 and LaCharité and Paradis 2000a, b, Bolduc 2001, Lamoureux 2000, Ulrich 1997, and Savard 2007), we know, as

previously mentioned, that loanword adaptation occurs in a predictable and regular manner with minimum loss of phoneme information which is encoded by the Preservation Principle presented in section 3.2.I.2. These authors have also shown that phoneme deletion is rare and nearly completely predictable according to the phonological context. Other studies (see, among others, Holden 1976, Silverman 1992 and Yip 1993) were not able to predict either the rate or the context of phoneme deletions. Sometimes phoneme deletions are attributed to non-phonological factors such as the influence of analogy, spelling, etc. However, most of the time, these authors attribute phoneme deletions to the fact that L2 sounds would not be phonetically perceived by the L1 speakers; an approach that will be detailed in the next section.

2.5 Phonetic approach to illicit phoneme adaptation

The hypothesis that illicit phonemes in loanwords are adapted phonetically is supported by various researchers such as Silverman (1992), Yip (1993, 2002), Peperkamp and Dupoux (2002, 2003), Broselow (2001), Kang (2003, 2007), Kenstowicz (2003), Shinohara (2000, 2006), Kenstowicz and Suchato (2006), Boersma and Hamann (2009a, b), Hsieh et al. (2009), among others. According to these authors, loanword adaptation occurs at the phonetic or perceptual level and there is a reduced phonological role, if any at all.

2.5.1 How phonetic approximation works

The phonetic approximation model proposes that adaptations, or changes to illicit phonemes, occur in perception. Borrowers are either not proficient enough in the L2 to be able to accurately perceive and interpret L2 sounds, as they would be perceived or interpreted by a native speaker of the L2, or they are unable to access this knowledge when in L1 mode. The results of both hypotheses are the same: during perception, borrowers interpret and perceive the acoustic signal of L2 sounds through the prism of their L1. This results in L2 sounds that are at times misinterpreted or that are simply left uninterpreted or “unheard.” Mapping occurs in the perception of L2 surface forms, and this perception is

Ll-referenced thereby creating an environment susceptible to misinterpretation and non­ interpretation. The end results are recategorization (or improper categorization from the point of view of the L2), elision of phonemes to which the borrower is “deaf,” and the insertion of illusory phonemes.

Several authors that support a strong version of the phonetic approximation model include Peperkamp and Dupoux (2002, 2003), Peperkamp (2005) as well as Silverman (1992). For Peperkamp and Dupoux (2002, 2003) and Peperkamp (2005), an ill-formed L2 sound becomes the phonetically closest sound in the L l. What is important is phonetic distance (Peperkamp and Dupoux 2003: 368). Peperkamp (2005: 349) states that changes to loanwords, “[...] are based upon phonetic rather than phonological distance [...].” Peperkamp and Dupoux (2003) state:

[...] loanword adaptations are not due to the phonological grammar, but rather, to perceptual processes involved in the decoding of nonnative sounds. These perceptual processes [...] are sensitive not so much to the phonological properties of the language as to its phonetic properties (Peperkamp and Dupoux 2003: 367).

According to Peperkamp and Dupoux (2003: 368), “[...] nonnative sounds are recorded as native ones during perception.” Adaptations occur during perception, and as Peperkamp and Dupoux (2003) point out above, there is no phonological or grammatical component. For Kenstowicz and Suchato (2006: 922), this is an “extragrammatical” adaptation model where only perception plays a role.

For Silverman (1992), adaptation occurs in perception, prior to entering the phonology of the L l. In the model of Silverman (1992), there are two levels involved in loanword incorporation: there is the perceptual and the phonological level. Silverman (1992) is of the opinion that the input to the L l is the acoustic output of the L2 and changes to the input occur during perception where the perceived sounds are mapped to phonemes