On the borrowing of sokuon/Q/ in words from Korean

Abstract

This paper aims to provide a case study of the realization of sokuon /Q/ in words borrowed from Korean into Japanese, a topic which has not been discussed at length in the literature. The Japanese adaptation of foreign words has been widely discussed, but most studies focus on words from English. Looking at Korean-based words in Japanese, however, we encounter certain adaptation patterns that are not necessarily the same as those found for English loanwords. This paper focuses on /Q/ realization in the Japanese adaptation of Korean words from a phonetic perspective, and argues that low-level phonetic information plays an important role in adaptation of Korean words. In addition, comparing these findings with findings on English loanwords in previous studies, it is argued that the difference regarding /Q/ realization between words from Korean and words from English is also attributable to actual phonetic differences between the two source languages.