The purpose of this paper is to investigate the needed constraints and their ranking in the discussion of English loanwords within the framework of a constraint-based theory. Korean recently borrowed many words from English. In the process of borrowin...
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the needed constraints and their ranking in the discussion of English loanwords within the framework of a constraint-based theory. Korean recently borrowed many words from English. In the process of borrowing these loanwords should undergo some phonological changes in conformity with the syllable structure of the native language. Korean data of loanwords support the hypothesis that impermissible consonant clusters will be modified in borrowing language by epenthesis rather than by deletion. That is to say, native Korean words prefer to delete one of them, while English loanwords prefer to insert vowels.
Within the constraint-based theory perspective, it is reasonable to assume that the kinds of constraints and their ranking used in English loanwords are usually different from those of native words. Various aspects of vowel epenthesis in English loanwords can be explained within the constraint-based theory. Needed constraints and their ranking are available for our discussion of loanword phonology. In this paper, a single constraint ranking for English loanwords has been proposed. The constraints and their ranking are as follows:
NoComp, SP 》 CodaCon》 Max-IO》 Ident-IO》 Son》Dep-IO
I have seen that the optimal forms among a few candidates in each examples can be well selected by the above constraint hierarchy.