Phonology versus phonetics in loanword adaptations
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Sharon Peperkamp
Abstract
The question of whether loanword adaptation is based on phonological or phonetic proximity has been widely debated. Focusing on the adaptation of English vowels in French, I argue that on-line adaptations are based on perceived phonetic proximity, which is influenced by co-articulatory information. A perception experiment assessed French listeners’ perception of English vowels presented both within and spliced out of CVC syllables; the results were compared to the on-line adaptations of the same vowels in the same consonantal contexts produced previously by French speakers (Vendelin & Peperkamp 2006). Vowel identification in the two conditions differed, and the on-line adaptations are reflected more closely by the condition with vowels presented in context. These results support the hypothesis that on-line adaptations are based on phonetic, not phonological, proximity. They also show that phonetic variability due to coarticulation influences perception and hence that consonantal context should be controlled for in cross-linguistic vowel comparisons.
Abstract
The question of whether loanword adaptation is based on phonological or phonetic proximity has been widely debated. Focusing on the adaptation of English vowels in French, I argue that on-line adaptations are based on perceived phonetic proximity, which is influenced by co-articulatory information. A perception experiment assessed French listeners’ perception of English vowels presented both within and spliced out of CVC syllables; the results were compared to the on-line adaptations of the same vowels in the same consonantal contexts produced previously by French speakers (Vendelin & Peperkamp 2006). Vowel identification in the two conditions differed, and the on-line adaptations are reflected more closely by the condition with vowels presented in context. These results support the hypothesis that on-line adaptations are based on phonetic, not phonological, proximity. They also show that phonetic variability due to coarticulation influences perception and hence that consonantal context should be controlled for in cross-linguistic vowel comparisons.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & acknowledgments vii
- Editors’ introduction ix
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Part I First and second language acquisition
- Devil or angel in the details? 3
- Effects of Spanish use on the production of Catalan vowels by early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals 33
- Cues to dialectal discrimination in early infancy 55
- Phonology versus phonetics in loanword adaptations 71
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Part II Prosody
- A preliminary study of penultimate accentuation in French 93
- Sentence modality and tempo in Neapolitan Italian 109
- Glottalization at phrase boundaries in Tuscan and Roman Italian 125
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Part III Segments
- Acoustic analysis of syllable-final /k/ in Northern Peninsular Spanish 151
- The phonetic basis of a phonological pattern 171
- The production of rhotics in onset clusters by Spanish monolinguals and Spanish-Basque bilinguals 193
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Part IV Methodology
- Secondary correlates of question signaling in Manchego Spanish 211
- Modeling prosody and rhythmic distributions in Spanish speech groups 239
- Categories and gradience in intonation 259
- Subject Index 285
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & acknowledgments vii
- Editors’ introduction ix
-
Part I First and second language acquisition
- Devil or angel in the details? 3
- Effects of Spanish use on the production of Catalan vowels by early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals 33
- Cues to dialectal discrimination in early infancy 55
- Phonology versus phonetics in loanword adaptations 71
-
Part II Prosody
- A preliminary study of penultimate accentuation in French 93
- Sentence modality and tempo in Neapolitan Italian 109
- Glottalization at phrase boundaries in Tuscan and Roman Italian 125
-
Part III Segments
- Acoustic analysis of syllable-final /k/ in Northern Peninsular Spanish 151
- The phonetic basis of a phonological pattern 171
- The production of rhotics in onset clusters by Spanish monolinguals and Spanish-Basque bilinguals 193
-
Part IV Methodology
- Secondary correlates of question signaling in Manchego Spanish 211
- Modeling prosody and rhythmic distributions in Spanish speech groups 239
- Categories and gradience in intonation 259
- Subject Index 285
