Category Preservation and Proximity versus Phonetic Approximation in Loanword Adaptation

Category Preservation andProximity versus PhoneticApproximation in LoanwordAdaptationDarlene LaChariteCarole Paradis

In this article, we argue that loanword adaptation is overwhelminglyphonological and that phonetic approximation plays a limited role inthe sound changes that loanwords undergo. Explicit criteria are usedto compare the predictions of the phonetic approximation and phono-logical stances against 12 large corpora of recent English and Frenchloanwords in several different languages. We show that category prox-imity is overwhelmingly preferred over perceptual proximity and thattypical L2 perception/interpretation errors are not reflected in the adap-tations of the loanwords of this database. Borrowers accurately identifyL2 sound categories, operating on the mental representation of an L2sound, not directly on its surface phonetic form.

Keywords: loanword adaptation, borrowing, phonological adaptation,phonetic approximation, perceptual adaptation, Project CoPho data-base

1 Introduction

Borrowed words often sound quite different in a borrowing language (L1) than they do in thelanguage from which they are taken (L2). For instance, the French word fondue [f:dy] is usuallypronounced [f&ndu] in English. Popular wisdom has it that borrowers, not being speakers of theL2, often fail to perceive and/or interpret foreign words in accordance with L2 norms. Somephonologists share this view, which we refer to as the phonetic approximation stance. However,we argue that loanword adaptation is overwhelmingly phonological, a position shared by otherphonologists (Hyman 1970, Lovins 1975, Danesi 1985, Ulrich 1997, Jacobs and Gussenhoven2000, Davis and Kang 2003) and general linguists (Bloomfield 1933, Weinreich 1953, 1957). Asmentioned by Danesi (1985:10), as soon as this position is taken ‘‘a cognitive viewpoint ofnativization is necessarily adopted, and reference is made not to phonetic facts, but to systemicones.’’ In line with this thinking, we maintain that borrowers, who are bilinguals,1 accurately

1 There is extensive support for this view (e.g., Haugen 1950, Weinreich 1970, Grosjean 1982, Poplack, Sankoff,and Miller 1988, Paradis and LaCharite 1997, LaCharite and Paradis 2000, Field 2002).

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224 DARLENE LACHARIT E AND CAROLE PARADIS

identify L2 sound categories;2 that is, they operate on the mental representation of an L2 sound,not directly on its surface phonetic form. Our claims are summarized in (1).

(1) Claims

a. Loanword adaptation is generally based on the L2- (not the L1-) referenced percep-tion of L2 phoneme categories.3

b. Phonetic approximation (phoneme mismatching or nonperception of sounds) playsa limited role in loanword adaptation.

c. Loanword adaptation is a rich source of information for phonological theory.

L2 sounds have to be made to conform to, among other things, the phonological requirementsof L1,4 which is why borrowers adapt them and why they do so more extensively when bilingual-ism is more limited within the community (Kiparsky 1973, Grosjean 1982, Thomason and Kauf-man 1988). Thus, comparing the L1 and L2 forms of relatively recent borrowings provides asnapshot of the L1 online phonological adaptation process. We maintain that phonetic approxima-tion (to be defined in (2)) plays a limited role in the sound changes that loanwords undergo. Ourarguments for the phonological view of loanword adaptation, and against phonetic approximationas the principal device of loanword adaptation, are based mainly on the study of the adaptationsfound in 12 large corpora of recent English and French loanwords in several different languages.These corpora, which are from Project CoPho,5 include 42,726 malformations relevant to phonol-ogy. The database will be more fully presented in the next section.

According to the phonetic approximation stance, the borrower’s perception/interpretation offoreign sounds and structures is often faulty (from the perspective of L2) because the acousticsignal is interpreted through the lens of a perceptual system that is attuned specifically andexclusively to L1, the borrower’s native language. It is because this view attributes loanwordadaptation to the L1-referenced perception of the surface, phonetic form of a foreign word thatit is referred to as the phonetic approximation stance.

Though phonetic approximation is often only implied in the recent published loanwordliterature (e.g., van Coetsem 1988),6 some authors such as Silverman (1992), Yip (1993), Kensto-

2 We use the term (L2) sound, which might refer to either a phoneme or a surface variant, when we think that weshould be, a priori, neutral.

3 We use the terms phoneme and segment synonymously, as shorthand terms. In keeping with current phonologicaltheories, we take phonemes/distinctive segments to actually be hierarchically organized feature combinations. We assumethat equivalent phonemes in different languages have the same underlying phonological feature specifications. For instance,though voiced stops are phonetically different in English and Spanish, we consider that both English /b/ and Spanish/b/ are phonologically defined as voiced labial stops. When we refer to an illicit phoneme, we mean either that theparticular feature combination is unacceptable to a given language or that one of the features that define the segment isnot phonologically employed in the language.

4 Borrowings have to conform to morphological requirements as well, as pointed out by Danesi (1985). However,we will not be concerned with such requirements here.

5 Project CoPho, which is supervised by Carole Paradis at Laval University, is concerned with the role of constraints(Co) in phonology (Pho).

6 This has not always been the case. The debate over whether loanword adaptation is phonetic or phonological isa longstanding one. As mentioned by Danesi (1985:9), in the prestructuralist and some of the structuralist literature,phonetic approximation was the most common explanation for the nativization process. That is, the nativization of foreignwords was explained in terms of physical phonetics.

CATEGORY PRESERVATION AND PROXIMITY IN LOANWORD ADAPTATION 225

wicz (2001), and Peperkamp and Dupoux (2002, 2003) adopt it explicitly. For instance, in a studyof the adaptation of English loanwords in Cantonese, Silverman (1992) proposes that all loanwordadaptation is phonetic approximation. Despite acknowledging that ‘‘[m]any Cantonese speakerswho employ English loanwords possess a good command of both spoken and written English,’’Silverman (1992:296) goes on to say that

as they are speaking Cantonese during the process of loanword incorporation, it is this system thatwill determine how incoming forms are perceived. . . . When confronted with a segment whose featurematrix in English does not exist in Cantonese, Cantonese speakers will represent and produce thenative segment that most closely approximates the input in articulatory and/or acoustic properties.7

According to the phonetic approximation view, the process of mapping nonnative sound patternsonto the phonetically closest sounds of L1 takes place during perception. L1 perception can notonly ‘‘deform’’ foreign sounds and structures, but also render the borrower perceptually deaf tocertain foreign sounds and structures. Both Silverman (1992) and Peperkamp and Dupoux (2002,2003), who are among the most explicit proponents of phonetic approximation, hold perceptualdeafness responsible for deletions found in loanword adaptation.8

In a nutshell, phonetic approximation supposes that, given the limiting factor of a perceptualsystem that is not specifically attuned to the phonetics or phonology of L2, the borrower’s effortsoften fall short of correct perception/interpretation of L2 sounds and structures. This limitationis held responsible for many, if not all, the sound changes seen in loanword adaptation.

Operationally, we consider phonetic approximation to include either failure to perceive aphoneme (2A), resulting in phonologically unmotivated phoneme deletion, or incorrect phonemecategorization (phoneme mismatching) (2B). Phoneme mismatching is due either to confusionbetween variants and phonemes (a confusion of levels, such as when a phonetic variant is takenat face value) or to perceptual confusion between the surface realization of an L2 phoneme anda phonologically different L1 phoneme.

(2) Phonetic approximation

A. Phoneme nonperception (resulting in phoneme deletion)An L2 phoneme is deleted because it is not heard by L1 borrowers (possibly occursin a few cases, but phoneme deletion is very rare overall in the database, as shownin (5)).

B. Incorrect phoneme categorization (phoneme mismatching)1. Perceptual confusion (owing to perceptual proximity)

a. An L2 phoneme that is permitted in L1 nonetheless changes phoneme categoryin loanword adaptation because the phonetic cues associated with the L2

7 For an in-depth discussion of Silverman 1992, including a discussion of the point made here, see Paradis andLaCharite 1997.

8 According to Peperkamp and Dupoux (2003:367), ‘‘the native language distorts the way in which we produce,but also memorize, and even perceive foreign sounds. The phenomenon of phonological ‘deafnesses’[,] that is, the inabilityor extreme difficulty to discriminate certain nonnative contrasts, involves segmental and suprasegmental contrasts, aswell as contrasts based on the presence versus absence of a segment.’’


phoneme relate to a different L1 phoneme (e.g., English /r/ ([Û])N Japanese/w/ instead of Japanese /r/ ([˜]) because [Û] is phonetically more similar toJapanese /w/; does not occur in the corpus).

b. An L2 phoneme that does not occur in L1 is adapted to the perceptually,rather than phonologically, closest L1 phoneme (e.g., English /ë/ N French/e/ instead of /i/, the almost exclusive adaptation).

2. Level confusion (mistaking variants for phonemes and vice versa)a. An L2 phonetic variant is identified as phonemic in L1 (e.g., English /+√/,

pronounced [[√], as in bank [b[√k], being identified as /[√/ in French; thecorpus yields a few possible cases).9

b. An L2 phoneme is identified as a phonetic variant of a different phoneme inL1 (e.g., English /h/ might be identified as /+, Ç/ in some Quebec Frenchdialects where these phonemes can surface as [h]; though this could theoreti-cally occur, it does not in either of the Project CoPho corpora of Englishloanwords in Quebec French).

Since phoneme deletion occurs in only 2.6% of the malformation cases (1,116/42,726 cases),as will be shown in table 1, deletion due to failure to perceive a phoneme, as expressed in (2A),must be rare in the Project CoPho database. As we will show in section 6, phoneme deletion isalso very low in the nonmalformation contexts that we studied. As for phoneme mismatching,it, too, is very uncommon in the database. In adapting those L2 phonemes that are identified, onphonetic grounds, as being foreign, L1 borrowers preserve the L2 phonological categories to thegreatest extent possible. This is formally stated in (3).

(3) Category Preservation Principle

If a given L2 phonological category (i.e., feature combination) exists in L1, this L2category will be preserved in L1 in spite of phonetic differences.

As an example of category preservation, when English loanwords are adapted into French,English /b/ will be preserved as /b/, despite phonetic differences that make it acoustically closerto French /p/, because in both languages, /b/ is phonologically represented with the same featurecombination, that of a voiced labial stop. If an L2 phonological feature combination (phonologicalcategory) does not exist in L1, it is generally repaired/adapted (unless the foreign sound is im-ported). For instance, let us assume that voiced fricatives are ruled out in a borrowing languagebecause of a prohibition against the combination *[�continuant �voice]. This illicit combinationis repaired phonologically, usually by deleting one of the offending features (e.g., */z/ N /s/;*/z/ N /d/), a minimal repair. Only after the (minimal) phonological repair has occurred is the

9 However, one should be careful with this type of case since [[√] in Quebec French could simply be an importationof the English variant [[√] from /+√/. In a highly bilingual community, this constitutes what we will later call intentionalphonetic approximation (importation), as opposed to cases of English [[√] analyzed as /[√/ in L1, which we call naivephonetic approximation.


resulting feature configuration mapped to a phonetic form. The borrower does not directly seekthe closest L1 phonetic match, but rather the closest phonological one for illicit L2 sounds.Phonological closeness is determined by the number of steps (insertion/deletion) that an L2 pho-neme must go through to become acceptable in L1. This is formally stated in (4).

(4) Category Proximity Principle

a. If a given L2 phonological category (i.e., feature combination) does not exist in L1,this L2 category will be replaced by the closest phonological category in L1, evenif the L1 inventory contains acoustically closer sounds.

b. Category proximity is determined by the number of changes (in terms of structureand features) that an L2 phoneme must undergo to become a permissible phonemein L1.

Various authors have provided detailed instances of minimal loanword adaptation from the per-spective of phonology (see, e.g., Paradis and LaCharite 1997, Ulrich 1997, Paradis and Prunet2000). However, this is the first time that loanword adaptation has been so explicitly analyzedin terms of category preservation and category proximity and, as far as we know, the first timethat criteria for phonetic approximation in loanword adaptation have been clearly defined. Overall,this article uses explicit criteria to compare the predictions of the phonetic approximation andphonological stances, on the basis of what we believe to be the largest database of loanwordsthat has been studied from a phonological perspective, that of Project CoPho. In section 2, wedistinguish between naive and intentional phonetic approximation and consider the possibilitythat naive phonetic approximation might be found in the secondary adaptation patterns that some-times occur in the database. However, we show that, overall, secondary adaptations are rare(6.5%) in the database and thus unable to host phonetic approximation on any significant scale.In section 3, we envision the possibility that main adaptation patterns themselves could be phoneticapproximation and we demonstrate that this is not the case. In section 4, we address the irrelevanceof phonetic variants in loanword adaptation, showing that a sound’s phonological—not pho-netic—status determines its fate in loanword adaptation. Thus, sections 1–4 are intended to showthat category proximity is overwhelmingly preferred over perceptual proximity in adapting theloanwords of the Project CoPho database. In sections 5 and 6, we shift our focus to the CategoryPreservation Principle given in (3), by considering the predictions that typical L2 perception/interpretation errors would make for the adaptations of French loanwords in English and of Englishloanwords in Japanese, Spanish, and Italian. In section 5, we consider the adaptation of Frenchobstruent-sonorant coda clusters in French loanwords in English, in the light of findings thatEnglish monolinguals perceive sounds in a phonologically acceptable order, not necessarily intheir actual order of presentation. In section 6, we show that, irrespective of close phoneticsimilarities or differences, the adaption of sounds abides by the Category Preservation Principle.Section 6.1 illustrates this by contrasting the confusion of American English /r/ ([Û]) and /w/ byJapanese monolinguals with the adaptation of these sounds, most notably the rhotic, in Englishloanwords in Japanese. In section 6.2, the misperception/misinterpretation of English voiced stopsby Spanish- and Italian-speaking monolinguals is contrasted with the adaptation of voiced stops


in English loanwords in Spanish and Italian. These would be cases of phoneme mismatching, asexpressed in (2B1a), whereby an L2 phoneme that exists also in L1 is misidentified because ofits different phonetic characteristics in the two languages. In each case considered in sections 5and 6, the adaptations that would be predicted by the phonetic approximation stance are eithervery rare or nonexistent in the Project CoPho database. We conclude, in section 7, that L1-referenced phonetic approximation plays a very limited role in the adaptations of the ProjectCoPho loanword database; the adaptations are overwhelmingly phonological.

2 Potential Phonetic Approximation in Secondary Adaptation Patterns

The Project CoPho database, which is described in table 1, includes 11,238 established loanwords.These were gathered from documents and spontaneous speech and their pronunciations were thenverified with a minimum of three L1 speakers, none of whom (nor their parents) were fluent inL2.10 Each pronunciation by a consultant constitutes a form. In the database, 27,909 forms weregathered, which means that not all the consultants knew every borrowing. To avoid the influenceof the interviewer’s own pronunciations or, to the greatest extent possible, of orthography, borrow-ings were not directly presented, either orally or in writing. Forms were elicited through taskssuch as picture naming, fill-in-the-blanks, and definitions. The pronunciations thus elicited weretape-recorded and subsequently transcribed in IPA notation. The transcriptions were then indepen-dently verified by another phonologist/phonetician. Because loanword adaptation must be distin-guished from the effects of regular L1 phonological processes, it is vital to use loanwords thatwere transmitted directly from L2 to L1 during a period for which there is adequate informationabout the phonologies of both those languages. Generally speaking, this means using relativelyrecent loanwords. Thus, the loanwords in the database in table 1 are no older than 200 years, andthe great majority are much more recent. For instance, the Mexican Spanish corpora are heavilydominated by words borrowed since 1950.

As table 1 indicates, the forms of the database contain 42,726 malformations relevant tophonology. Of these, 27,547 are phonemic, 13,640 are syllabic, and 1,539 are accentual. Asalready mentioned, phoneme preservation (via either phoneme adaptation, 76.2%, or importation,21.3%) is much more frequent than phoneme deletion (2.6%).11 Phoneme adaptation is, in thevast majority of cases, straightforward, in the sense that most phonemic malformations each yielda single phoneme substitution pattern in L1 (e.g., English /υ/ N Spanish /u/ in 55/55 cases).Where there is more than a single adaptation, one usually heavily predominates (e.g., English/+/N Calabrese Italian /a/ in 1,077/1,168 cases (92.2%); /e/ ([[]) in 91/1,168 cases (7.8%)). Not

10 The one exception is the Fula corpus. Pronunciations include those gathered from two written sources and onenative speaker.

11 Most deletion cases are instances of /h/ deletion in languages that do not exploit the Pharyngeal node phonologically.The laryngeal /h/ is systematically deleted rather than adapted in those languages because the Pharyngeal node does notconstitute an available phonological primitive for them (see Paradis and LaCharite 2001). Discussion and examples of/h/ deletion in Quebec French will be provided in section 4.

229

Tab

le1

Loanw

orddatabase

ofProjectCoP

ho(2003/03/04)

Relevant

Nonadaptatio

nsCorpus

Loanw

ords

Form

smalform

ations

Adaptations

Deletions

(imports)

Eng

lish

loan

wor

dsin

QuebecCity

French

948

2,412

1,887

1,468(77.8%

)77

(4.1%)

342(18.1%

)MontrealFrench

948

2,245

1,808

1,281(70.9%

)68

(3.7%)

459(25.4%

)ParisFrench

300

450

445

364(81.8%

)18

(4%)

63(14.2%

)Mexican

Spanish1

1,045

1,514

2,289

1,551(67.8%

)3(0.1%)

735(32.1%

)Mexican

Spanish2

1,034

2,343

4,666

3,183(68.2%

)75

(1.6%)

1,408(30.2%

)Japanese

1,167

2,991

8,106

7,027(86.7%

)103(1.3%)

976(12%

)Calabrese

Italian

2,035

6,477

10,503

5,794(55.1%

)417(4%)

4,292(40.9%

)

Frenc

hloan

wor

dsin

MoroccanArabic

1,127

2,682

3,787

3,060(80.8%

)209(5.5%)

518(13.7%

)Kinyarw

anda

756

2,130

4,193

4,107(97.9%

)60

(1.5%)

26(0.6%)

Lingala

672

1,917

3,571

3,378(94.6%

)31

(0.9%)

162(4.5%)

Fula

532

1,081

960

872(90.8%

)55

(5.8%)

33(3.4%)

CanadianEnglish

674

1,667

511

431(84.3%

)0(0%)

80(15.7%

)

Total

(12corpora)

11,238

27,909

42,726

32,516

(76.1%

)1,116(2.6%)

9,094(21.3%

)


shown in table 1 are 2,668 sound changes that are influenced by nonphonological factors (thusbringing the total number of malformations in the corpus to 45,394). These nonphonologicaladaptations include cases of analogy, for the most part, but also cases of orthographic influence,words with different possible pronunciations in English (so the form on which adaptation is basedcannot be identified with certainty), and missed targets. Despite what is often believed, the clearinfluence of orthography is generally weak, accounting for the fate of only 860/43,855 cases (2%of the segmental and syllabic malformations).12 Danesi (1985:22) reports similar results, sayingthat ‘‘orthographically-induced nativization patterns’’ are nonexistent in his corpus of approxi-mately 500 English loanwords in Canadian Italian. This is not surprising since, as indicatedconsistently by sociolinguistic studies (e.g., Field 2002), loanwords, apart perhaps from someproper names, are borrowed in their oral forms in the great majority of cases.

So phoneme adaptation is usually systematic and sound based. The question is whethersounds are handled on a phonetic or a phonological basis. If phonetics is directly responsible forloanword adaptation, then we have to ask where phonetic approximation is in the database.However, we must first make a distinction between what we call naive and intentional phoneticapproximation. The latter is defined as nonadaptations (importations) in the Project CoPho data-base. As shown in table 1, importations represent the fate of 21.3% (i.e., 9,094/42,726) casesrelevant to phonology. As stated by Danesi (1985:18–19), they are essentially attempts to imitatethe pronunciation of the L2 words to the best of one’s abilities. More generally, we think thatimportations should be considered attempts to have the L1 phonological system accommodatecharacteristics of L2, whereas adaptations are geared to ensuring that the L1 system remainsunchanged. Consequently and crucially, intentional phonetic approximation (importation) intro-duces L2 sounds and structures into L1 while naive phonetic approximation does not.

Not surprisingly, the more bilinguals there are in a community, the more importations wefind. Thus, there are more nonadaptations in the corpus of Montreal French (32.8%) than thereare in that of Quebec City French (24.7%), because the number of bilinguals is greater in Montrealthan in Quebec City. According to the most recent figures of Statistics Canada (www.statcan.ca),the 1996 rate of bilingualism for Montreal was 49.7% and that for Quebec City was 30%. Therate of importations is still weaker in the Paris French corpus (14.2%) because the number ofFrench-English bilinguals is smaller in France than in Quebec. Quebec is surrounded by English-speaking communities and is part of a country where bilingualism is institutionalized. The bilin-gualism of Canada is whatMackey (1987, 1992) calls a political-institutional bilingualismwhereasthat of France is individual.13

12 We excluded from the total number of malformations (45,394) the accentual cases (1,539) that are irrelevant here.Note also that only outputs that both diverged from the main minimal phonological adaptation and corresponded to agrapheme in L1 or L2 were imputed to orthography.

13 This is why it is virtually impossible to find reliable statistics on the number of French-English bilinguals inFrance, comparable to those provided by Statistics Canada. In contrast to Statistics Canada, Statistics France (Institutnational de la statistique et des etudes economiques—INSEE) does not seek this information in population censuses.


Examples of the comparative importation rates of unacceptable English phonemes for theParis French, Quebec City French, and Montreal French corpora are presented in table 2. Asindicated, apart from /ajC$/ in Paris French,14 which is imported slightly more often than inQuebec City French, importations are systematically less numerous in Paris French than in QuebecFrench and systematically less numerous in Quebec City French than in Montreal French, whichis consistent with the number of French-English bilinguals in each community. Although wecannot predict the precise importation rate of an illicit sound from the percentage of bilingualsin the community, it is nonetheless clear from table 2 that the more bilinguals there are in acommunity, the more importations (i.e., intentional phonetic approximations) there are.

Even L2 variants are less often phonetically adapted in Montreal French than in QuebecCity French. For example, the English sound [Z], as in dealer [dilZ], remains ungallicized in86.1% of the cases (434/504) in the Montreal French corpus, whereas in the Quebec City Frenchcorpus it is gallicized as [¸, ˛, r] (yielding [dilU¸]) in almost 60% of the cases (318/537), whichimplies a 40% rate of importation. This contrasts dramatically with the numbers found in theParis French corpus, where the English sound [Z] is imported only once (1/15 cases, 6.7%). SeeParadis and LaCharite 1997 for a more detailed discussion of importations and Ulrich 1997:461,where low rates of bilingualism are correlated with low rates of importation in Lama.

Naive phonetic approximation, on the other hand, is made unwittingly by L1 speakers whoare unfamiliar, or much less familiar, with L2 sounds and structures. In other words, the resultingsounds are not importations, but misinterpretations of L2 sounds. This is the type of phonetic

14 French allows the sequence /aj/ at the end of syllable (e.g., bail [baj] ‘lease’, ail [aj] ‘garlic’). However, Frenchdoes not permit /aj/ before an intrasyllabic consonant (C$) as in English night [najt]. The figures provided here for thethree corpora include only the latter cases.

Table 2Comparative importation rates of some English sounds in French

English sound Paris French Quebec City French Montreal French

/υ/a 0/3 (0%) 2/70 (2.9%) 12/66 (18.2%)/ë/ 0/149 (0%) 17/479 (3.5%) 37/469 (7.9%)/ajC$/ 9/9 (100%) 68/72 (94.4%) 77/77 (100%)/√/ 0/77 (0%) 36/193 (18.6%) 90/172 (52.3%)/t+/ 16/26 (61.5%) 134/177 (75.7%) 158/171 (92.4%)/dÇ/ 29/32 (90.6%) 129/139 (92.8%) 128/132 (97%)/h/ 0/18 (0%) 1/77 (1%) 10/78 (12.8%)

a Quebec French has a well-known process of high vowel laxing in closed syllables (Dumas 1978). The numbersprovided here for the English high lax vowels include only those cases where the high lax vowel appears in an opensyllable in Quebec French, to avoid any confusion with the Quebec French native variants.


approximation to which linguists are usually referring and with which we will be concerned here.We believe that some of the secondary substitution patterns in the adaptation cases of the databasemay be driven by phonetic approximation instead of phonological categorization. As mentionedabove, there is generally a single phoneme substitution pattern for a given illicit segment. However,in a few cases, there is a residue of less preferred substitutions. These less preferred substitutionsare referred to as secondary adaptations. Possible phonetic approximation was not previouslyteased out from the adaptation cases within the secondary patterns. Yet a case such as English/�/ that yields /f/ in Calabrese Italian in 2/64 cases (3.1%) likely results from phonetic approxima-tion since /�/ is perceptually closer to /f/ than to /t/, the adaptation strategy used in the remaining62/64 cases. However, secondary substitution patterns constitute only 6.5% of all the adaptationsof the loanword database (1,457/22,509 cases), as shown in table 3. Furthermore, a significantnumber of the secondary adaptation cases can be attributed to the presence of two competingminimal phonological patterns (which is to say that two L1 categories are equally close to theL2 category in terms of features/structures). The most polarized case displaying competing phono-logical substitution patterns is that of English /&/ that is adapted in two phonologically justifiablephonemes in several languages, including Calabrese Italian, Japanese, and Mexican Spanish (bothcorpora). Thus, in some cases, [�low] is deleted from L2 [&], yielding L1 /o (:)/, whereas inother cases, [�round] is deleted, yielding L1 /a/. Examples of the variable adaptation of English/&/ in Calabrese Italian, Mexican Spanish, and Japanese are given in (5).

Table 3Secondary adaptations of ill-formed phonemes in the Project CoPho database

Total phonemic SecondaryCorpora adaptations in the database adaptations %

Montreal French 1,288 19 1.5Quebec City French 1,487 24 1.6Paris French 359 7 1.9Kinyarwanda 1,921 181 9.4Mexican Spanish (corpus 1) 1,137 165 14.5Mexican Spanish (corpus 2) 1,913 152 7.9Canadian English 253 37 14.6Calabrese Italian 5,507 285 5.9Japanese 3,190 216 6.8Fula 773 113 14.6Lingala 1,830 33 1.8Moroccan Arabic 2,851 225 7.9

Total 22,509 1,457 6.5


(5) The dual adaptation of English /&/ in Calabrese Italian, Mexican Spanish, and Japanesea. Adaptation to /o (:)/

Calabrese Italian all right [&lÛajt] N [olÛajt] 845/1,224 (75.2%)

Mexican Spanish ball [b&l] N [b:l] 478/731 (65.4%)

Japanese call [k&l] N [ko:ræ] 362/522 (69.3%)

b. Adaptation to /#/Calabrese Italian monitor [m&nUtUÛ] N [m#nitUr] 279/1,224 (24.8%)

Mexican Spanish topless [t&plUs] N [t#plUs] 253/731 (34.6%)

Japanese comma [k&mU] N [k#mma] 160/522 (30.7%)

Admittedly, the adaptation to [#] is less frequent throughout the database (25%–35%); we do notyet know if this is accidental. However, one thing is certain: orthography cannot be straightfor-wardly held responsible for the dichotomous adaptation since in many cases of adaptation to /#/in L1, the L2 vowel /&/ is written �o� in English and vice versa. If we exclude this secondarypattern where English /&/ yields /#/ (692 cases) from the total number of secondary adaptationsin table 3, on the grounds that it is also a phonologically minimal adaptation of /&/, the numberof secondary adaptations falls to 765, that is, 3.4%. In any case, whether secondary adaptationsrepresent 3.4% or 6.5% of the adaptations in the Project CoPho database, if phonetic approximationresides among those secondary adaptations, it can logically represent only a small portion of theadaptation cases.

3 Phonemic Proximity in Main Adaptation Patterns

We have just shown that the rate of secondary patterns of adaptation is low (6.5%) and mightbe even lower (3.4%), which we interpret to mean that phonetic approximation is rare in theProject CoPho database. However, what if the main adaptations themselves are due to phoneticapproximation, not phonological adaptation? In this section, we address this question by singlingout the behavior of two English vowels, /ë/ and /υ/, in five corpora of the database: the twocorpora of Mexican Spanish (henceforth, MS1 and MS2) and the three corpora of French (Paris,Montreal, and Quebec French). The points we make also apply to other vowels in other corpora,as shown by Hubert (2003). We show that the adaptation of the English high lax vowels is basedon category proximity, not phonetic proximity.

Our conclusions are based largely on a study by Delattre (1981) that compares the vocalicinventories of four languages—English, French, German, and Spanish—for the purpose of exam-ining vowel reduction in those languages.15 Delattre’s acoustic measurements of stressed English/ë/ and /υ/ are given in (6), along with those of /i/, /u/, /e/, and /o/ in Spanish.

15 We understand Delattre to be considering both American and British English vowels, since he points out differencesbetween the vowels of the two dialects where they are relevant to his purposes.


(6) Comparison of the formants of stressed vowels in English and Spanish16

English /ë/ F2 1700 Spanish /e/ F2 1950 Spanish /i/ F2 2250F1 375 F1 475 F1 300

English /υ/ F2 1300 Spanish /o/ F2 950 Spanish /u/ F2 800F1 425 F1 475 F1 300

According to these measurements, we should expect English /ë/ and /υ/ to be adapted as /e/ and/o/, respectively, in Mexican Spanish. Yet despite their acoustic proximity to Spanish /e/ and/o/, English /ë/ and /υ/ are not adapted as /e/ and /o/, but as /i/ and /u/ in, respectively, 99.8%(660/661) and 100% of the cases (55/55) in both corpora of Mexican Spanish.17 Examples areprovided in (7). Note that, in Spanish, �u� stands for [u], not [i], and �o� for [o], not [u]. Thus,orthographic influence cannot be invoked here.

(7) Examples of the adaptation of English /ë/ and /υ/ in Mexican Spanish /i/ and /u/English IPA MS

/ë/ building [bëldë√] [bildi√]

business [bëzn[s] [bëznUs] [bisn[s]

busy [bëzi] [bisi]

sixpack [sëksp+k] [sikspak]

/υ/ cook [kυk] [kuk]

good night [tυdnajt] [tudnajt]

look [lυk] [luk]

plywood [plajwυd] [plajwud]

The same reasoning applies to French. As shown in (8), Delattre’s (1981) acoustic measure-ments show that the formants of English /ë/ and /υ/ are closer to the French vowels /e/ and /o/than to /i/ and /u/.

(8) Comparison of the formants of stressed vowels in English and French

English /ë/ F2 1700 French /e/ F2 2200 French /i/ F2 2400F1 375 F1 400 F1 275

English /υ/ F2 1300 French /o/ F2 800 French /u/ F2 775F1 425 F1 400 F1 275

Nonetheless, English /ë/ and /υ/ are not adapted as /e/ and /o/ in the Paris French corpus, but as/i/ and /u/, respectively, in 100% of the cases (149/149 and 3/3). Examples are provided in (9).

16 It is well established that listeners rely primarily on F1 and F2 to distinguish one vowel from another (e.g., MacKay1987:265, Kent 1997:334, Ball and Rahilly 1999:166, 199, Ladefoged 2001:39).

17 There is one case in MS2 where [ë] is adapted as /e/ (English peppermint [p[pUÛmënt] yields Spanish [pepU˜ment]in one form).


F2

F1

2250 2000 1750 1500 1250 1000 750 5000

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

y

e

e

i

i

a

F

o

o

u

u

English vowelsQuebec French vowels

Figure 1Diagram of the formants for English and Quebec French vowels

Note that in French, �u� stands for [y], not [i], and �o� for [o], not [u], so orthographic influencecannot be invoked here either.

(9) Examples of the adaptation of English /ë/ and /υ/ to /i/ and /u/ in Paris French

English IPA PF

/ë/ building [bëldë√] [bildi«]

business [bëzn[s] [bëznUs] [bizn[s]

kid [këd] [kid]

/υ/ bookmaker [bυkmekUÛ] [bukmekU˛]

look [lυk] [luk]

Pullman [pυlmUn] [pulman]

As shown in (10) and in figure 1, the Quebec French (QF) case is even more striking since theperceptual proximity of the English high vowels /ë/ and /υ/ to the mid high vowels /e/ and /o/ isgreater in Quebec French (Martin 2002) than in Paris French.


(10) Comparison of the formants of stressed vowels in English and Quebec French

English /ë/ F2 1700 QF /e/ F2 2025 QF /i/ F2 2050F1 375 F1 350 F1 250

English /υ/ F2 1300 QF /o/ F2 750 QF /u/ F2 750F1 425 F1 350 F1 250

The acoustic proximity of English /ë/ and /υ/ to Quebec French /e/ and /o/ is illustrated in figure1.18 The Quebec French vowels /:/ and /[/ are even closer to English /υ/ and /ë/ than are QuebecFrench /o/ and /e/, as the figure illustrates. Yet, in spite of their acoustic proximity to the QuebecFrench mid vowels, English /ë/ and /υ/ are adapted to Quebec French /i/ and /u/, as exemplifiedin (11).

(11) Examples of the adaptation of English /ë/ and /υ / to /i/ and /u/ in Quebec French

English IPA QF

/ë/ clipper [klëpUÛ] [klipU¸]

(to) drill [dÛël] [d¸il-e]

hippie [hëpi] [ipi]

gyprock [dÇëpÛ&k] [Çip¸:k]/υ/ push up [pυ+Rp] [pu+:p]

woofer [wυfUÛ] [wufUÛ]

(to) book [bυk] [buk-e]

pusher [pυ+UÛ] [pu+UÛ]

These adaptations apply in 99.6% (907/911) and 98.3% (117/119) of the cases, respectively. Inthe remaining cases, /ë/ is adapted as /[/ (1 case) and /#/ (3 cases), whereas /υ/ is adapted as /:/(2 cases). Therefore, phonetic approximation might be invoked only 0.4% of the time (4 cases)for /ë/ and 1.7% of the time (2 cases) for /υ/.

The category [�high, �ATR] is replaced by [�high, �ATR], thus preserving the phono-logical category [�high]. The corpora of the Project CoPho database suggest that preserving thecategory [�high] is more important than preserving the category [�ATR], which would haveyielded /[/ and /:/, respectively.19 Although minimal (requiring only the delinking of [�high]from the lax high vowel), this strategy is not selected. This may mean that our definition of closestcategory in (4b) is incomplete. However, there are several other explanations one might considerbefore reaching this conclusion. First, the status of [ATR] for English vowels is uncertain. AsJensen (1993:35) writes, ‘‘There is some controversy over whether to analyze these [tense] vowelsas underlyingly long, underlyingly tense, or underlyingly diphthongs.’’ Giegerich (1992:48) notesthat ‘‘[i]n most accents of English [the vowels /i/-/ë/] form a long-short opposition.’’ Second, it

18 The Quebec French nasal vowels are excluded from the diagram because nasality is irrelevant here.19 This is true not only of the corpora of English loanwords in Quebec French and Mexican Spanish, but also of the

corpora of English loanwords in Japanese and Calabrese Italian.


is very common in the world’s languages for vowels to display [ATR] alternations within theirheight level (e.g., /e, o/ and /i, u/ often alternate with /[, :/ and /ë, υ/, respectively). However,alternations across height categories, as between /e, o/ and /i, u/, are much less frequent. Fromthis perspective, [ATR] variations seemminor compared with height variations. Clearly, languagesexploit height distinctions before engaging [ATR] ones since the most common vowel systemis /i, u, #/ followed by /i, u, e/[, o/:, #/—not, for example, /i, ë, u, υ, #/ or /e, [, o, :, #/ (Maddieson1984). Giegerich (1992:48) also notes that the vowels /i/-/ë/ in English are similar in quality andfunction as a pair, although ‘‘/ë/ is also rather similar to /e/.’’ He adds, ‘‘Clearly, the notion of‘similarity in quality’ requires further discussion,’’ suggesting that there is something else at workbehind the /i/-/ë/ pair such as categorization.

Calabrese (1995:379) claims that ‘‘UG includes lists of statements each of which asserts thatthe cooccurrence of certain feature specifications creates a configuration that is either impossible orphonologically complex.’’ He further contends that complexity is gradable and that while [�high�ATR] vowels are optimal from the point of view of markedness, mid vowels in an inventoryresult from the deactivation of a marking statement (p. 384)—that is, they are more marked than[�high �ATR] vowels. Repair, in his view, is a process of eliminating complexity. Thus, itcould be that delinking [�high] to derive a mid vowel is less preferred because it does noteliminate complexity to the extent that delinking [�ATR] to derive /i/ does. Whatever the reasonis that [high] overrides [ATR] here, one thing is certain: phonetic approximation cannot be heldresponsible for the adaptations presented in this section, since the actual outcomes of loanwordadaptation are acoustically further from the ill-formed L2 sounds than are other L1 sounds.

4 The Irrelevance of Phonetic Variants in Loanword Adaptation

This section extends a line of argumentation pursued in LaCharite and Paradis 2000 and in Paradisand LaCharite 2001, 2002, where it is shown that phonetic variants in neither the source languagenor the borrowing language have a direct impact on loanword adaptation. Adaptations based onphonetic variants would be cases of phonetic approximation according to (2B2).

The idea that borrowers adapt on the basis of the surface phonetic form of an L2 word makestwo closely related predictions. First, it predicts that L2 phonemes corresponding to phoneticvariants of L1, the borrowing language, should be acceptable, since they already occur in thephonetic form of L1 words. Second, L2 phonemes and phonetic variants that correspond to thesurface realizations of L1 phonemes should be related to those L1 phonemes, irrespective of theirphonemic affiliation in L2.We considered these predictions in the light of what is actually observedin the Project CoPho loanword corpora and found that they were not confirmed.

Consider, as a first example, the case of /r/ ([˛]) in French loanwords in Moroccan Arabicthat is discussed at length in Paradis and LaCharite 2001. To sum up the facts, Arabic has auvular fricative that is phonetically the same as the standard uvular realization of the Frenchrhotic (for extensive references, see Paradis and LaCharite 2001). Thus, French [˛] could beexpected to be interpreted as the Arabic uvular fricative, at least sometimes. This would be acase of phonetic approximation according to (2B2a). Yet none of the 1,374 French rhotic casesis ever adapted as a uvular fricative in Arabic. Instead, the French rhotic is consistently adapted


as an Arabic rhotic that, phonetically speaking, is a coronal flap or trill (again, Paradis andLaCharite 2001 provides many references). Clearly, the rhotic’s phonological identity rather thanits surface form is behind the adaptation of French loanwords in Moroccan Arabic.

The standard and usual realization of the rhotic is uvular ([˛]) in France, including in southernFrance, but some dialects of Midi French (e.g., the Carcassonne and Burgundian dialects) alsohave the coronal realization, [r]. One reviewer wondered whether the coronal [r], rather than theuvular [˛], served as the model for the adaptation of French loanwords in Moroccan Arabic. Infact, this is highly unlikely. For one thing, even in the southwest (Perpignan and Carcassonne)the uvular rhotic is now the norm and was already frequent at the beginning of the last century(Jacques Durand, pers. comm.). Thus, even if dialects having a coronal realization of the rhoticdid serve as the model for loanword adaptation, Moroccan Arabic borrowers would certainly nothave encountered only the coronal realization of the rhotic (which is, incidentally, poorly viewedby the French); in fact, borrowers would have more often encountered the uvular realization ofthe rhotic even in those dialects.

However, the idea that a dialect other than Standard (i.e., basically Parisian) French, forwhich the uvular realization of the rhotic is the norm, served as the model throughout the Frenchcolonies is unrealistic. Paris was the administrative epicenter and it set (and continues to set) theeducation standard. As Hamers and Blanc (2000:311) put it, ‘‘In the pursuit of national unity,the French State, using a variety of methods, succeeded, from the 1539 Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterets onwards, in imposing the Parisian dialect of the ruling elites upon the whole Frenchpopulation and most of its overseas colonies.’’ We can be pretty confident, therefore, that theFrench loanword input was generally standard and contained the uvular realization of the rhotic.Despite this fact, the French rhotic, whose standard realization is uvular, was consistently adaptedto /r/ ([r]) in Moroccan Arabic in 1,374 cases. This is true for both older borrowings and recentones (e.g., ordinateur ‘computer’ [:˛dinat�˛] N MA [lυrdinatυr]; supermarche ‘supermarket’[syp[˛ma˛+e]NMA [sυpërmar+i]; aspirateur ‘vacuum cleaner’ [aspë˛at�˛]NMA [laspiratυr]).This suggests that Moroccan Arabic–speaking borrowers were/are not adapting loanwords on thebasis of the surface form of the French word.

Conversely, the Arabic uvular fricative, though phonetically virtually identical to the phoneticrealization of the Standard French rhotic, is systematically replaced by /g/, which is shown inParadis and LaCharite 2001:287 to be a phonological adaptation. Thus, Arabic [˛az+:l] ‘gazelle’is adapted as [taz[l], not *[˛az[l]. Instead of settling for the French rhotic that is phoneticallythe same as the Arabic uvular fricative (a case of phonetic approximation as in (2B2b)), Frenchadapts to the phonologically closer velar stop. Again, the L2 sound’s phonological, rather thanphonetic, identity determines how it is adapted, and the predictions of the phonetic approximationposition are disconfirmed.

Another example of the irrelevance of phonetic variants in loanword adaptation is providedby the treatment of the flap in English loanwords in Project CoPho’s two Mexican Spanish (MS)corpora.20 The flap, a phonetic variant of /t/ or /d/ in English, is phonetically very close, if not

20 A large part of the MS1 and MS2 corpora are found in Fecteau 1998 and Bolduc 2001, respectively.


identical, to the Spanish rhotic tap (Monnot and Freeman 1972, MacKay 1987:108, Laver 1994:225, Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996:231). Indeed, Monnot and Freeman (1972:416) assert that‘‘the differentiation between the two dependsmainly upon the linguistic background of the listener,and not upon the acoustical and articulatory characteristics of the sound.’’ If loanword adaptationwere based on the L1-guided perception and interpretation of the surface phonetic form of L2words, we would expect English flaps to often be identified as rhotic taps in English loanwordsin Spanish (another prediction of (2B2a)). We tested this expectation against Project CoPho’scorpus of 3,857 English loanword forms in Mexican Spanish. Of these, 211 English loanwordforms have a poststressed intervocalic coronal stop that would normally be produced as a flap inNorth American English.21 Contrary to the prediction of phonetic approximation, the stop isalmost always correctly interpreted as /t/ or /d/ in the Spanish form of the word. Examples of theusual adaptations of English flaps are given in (12) and the relevant figures in (13).22

(12) Examples of the treatment of [˜] in English loanwords in Mexican Spanish

English N MS

bitter /bëtUÛ/ [bë˜Z] N [bitU˜]

caddie /k+di/ [k+˜i] N [kadi]

water /w&tUÛ/ [w&˜Z] N [w:tU˜]

(13) Statistics on the treatment of [˜] in English loanwords in Mexican Spanish

MS1 number of cases 79possible phonetic approximation cases 1 (1.3%)importation cases 2 (2.5%)deletion cases 0same phoneme cases 76 (96.2%)/t/ N [˜] N /t/ 46/d/ N [˜] N /d/ 30

MS2 number of cases 132possible phonetic approximation cases 0importation cases 0deletion cases 1 (0.8%)same phoneme cases 131 (99.2%)/t/ N [˜] N /t/ 92/d/ N [˜] N /d/ 39

21 As one reviewer notes, this is not the only environment in which flapping can occur, as our own later examplesshow. However, we wanted to test a clear case of flapping against the loanword data of the Project CoPho MexicanSpanish corpora, and intervocalic posttonic flapping presents this. Virtually all native speakers of North American Englishproduce a flap in this environment, even when speaking the words in isolation.

22 Of the 212 flapping cases, 1 was missed entirely (a missed target) and was discounted (photofinish was pronounced[fofofini+]).


As this shows, the flap is treated phonologically—that is, correctly identified as /t/ or /d/—in207/211 (98.1%) cases. In only 1 case is English [˜] identified as a rhotic (shut up is realized as[+RÛ:p]) and in only 1 case is it deleted (baking powder [bekë√pa

˘w˜UÛ] N [bekë√pa

˘wUÛ]). The

former, in which the flap is misidentified as a rhotic, seems to be a case of phonetic approximation.However, the deletion case is possibly influenced by false analogy to power rather than beingpurely phonetic approximation. The net result is that even if we give phonetic approximation thebenefit of the doubt by including the deletion case, this still accounts for only 2/211 cases (0.95%).It is clear that the flap variant of an English coronal stop is almost never taken at face value inEnglish loanwords in Mexican Spanish.

One might think that orthography is largely responsible for the correct identification of theflap. Before discussing this possibility, we would like to point out that calling on orthography toexplain the adaptation of the flap would be equally unappealing for the phonetic approximationstance. Why would L1-guided perception of the surface phonetic form of an L2 word be sufficientin most cases, but systematically yield to orthographic influence in precisely the kind of casewhere the borrower should least need it? When an L2 sound is phonetically familiar, borrowersshould at least think that they have correctly identified it. What, for instance, would motivateSpanish-speaking borrowers to check the orthography on hearing [˜] in an English loanword?Why should they not assume that they have correctly heard English [˜] and that it is correctlyinterpreted as /˜/? In short, invoking orthography in cases like the flap could pose some stickyquestions for phonetic approximation.

However, appealing to orthography to explain correct identification of the flap is both unnec-essary and untenable in any case. Why is it unnecessary? When it comes to the flap, there are atleast three nonorthographic sources of information about the identity of a flap that reveal whetherthe phonological representation should be /t/ or /d/ (or the flap itself). First, there is the informationprovided by alternations, which do occur in the database and which, more generally speaking,bilinguals can be expected to know. For instance, the bilingual who knows the words heater andheating is likely also to know themore basic words heat and heats. Bilinguals, almost by definition,have significant L2 lexicons, in contrast to monolinguals, who know only the odd L2 word.

Of course, not all words containing a flap occur in alternating forms, even if we take intoconsideration that flapping can occur across word boundaries (as in heat up). The word water isan example. However, there are other nonorthographic ways of determining how the flap shouldbe phonologized. One way is by hearing a word sometimes pronounced without the overlay offlapping. This happens in slow, careful speech, such as foreigner talk, the speech sometimesaddressed to nonnative speakers, which is slower, more clearly enunciated, and less subject toaccommodation and assimilation processes (Ellis 1994:251–267, Gass and Selinker 1994:198).Thus, in the process of becoming proficient in English, nonnative speakers have probably heardunflapped versions of words frequently enough to realize that the flap is not a phonological soundof English and to lexicalize words with /t/ or /d/, as appropriate.

A third way of determining a flap’s phonological identity is by becoming aware that thevowel is systematically lengthened before a voiced stop in English and that this length contrast


is maintained even when the stop yields to flapping (Fisher and Hirsh 1976, Fox and Terbeek1977). Native speakers are able to exploit this subtle phonetic cue to determine the underlyingidentity of the stop (Fox and Terbeek 1977), and proficient L2 speakers may be expected to doso as well.

Besides being unnecessary, the orthographic explanation is untenable, as discussed at lengthin Paradis and Prunet 2000:337–340. For example, why would certain adaptations systematicallyyield to orthographic influence, when other equally likely candidates clearly do not? For instance,why do �ea� sequences in English loanwords such as heater not routinely yield adaptation to/ea/ in French, Italian, and Spanish (heater is adapted as French [itUÛ] *[eatUÛ]), Spanish [xitUr]*[xeatUÛ], and Italian [itUr] *[eatUr])? This is not because the sequence [ea] is not permitted inthose languages (as shown by French theatre [teat¸] ‘theater’, Spanish real [˜eal] ‘royal’, andItalian leale [leale] ‘faithful’). Also, adaptation is very clearly antagonistic to an orthographicexplanation in many cases. For instance, graphemes such as �g� in designer and final �e� in date,which are not pronounced by native speakers, are very rarely pronounced by borrowers. Trulyorthographic pronunciations, such as Mexican Spanish [buldi√] for building [bëldë√], are atypicalin the Project CoPho database. On the other hand, sounds such as the [j] in computer, which are notorthographically represented, are pronounced, so that English [kUmpju˜UÛ] is adapted as MexicanSpanish [k:mpjutU˜]. In sum, if loanword adaptation routinely referred to orthography, then itsinfluence should not be so rare and so apparently selective in the adaptations found in the ProjectCoPho database (see Lamoureux 2000, Paradis and Prunet 2000:339, Goulet 2001 for extensivediscussion of orthography’s limited influence in the Project CoPho database).

In LaCharite and Paradis 2000 and Paradis and LaCharite 2001, we discuss another casewhere a phonetic variant in the borrowing language fails to have an impact on loanword adaptation.This is the case of English loanwords containing /h/ that are borrowed into some dialects ofQuebec French that contain [h] as an optional, but frequent, context-free phonetic variant of thealveopalatal fricatives /+/ and /Ç/. Examples of [h] in the native French vocabulary are given in(14).

(14) Phonetic [h] in the native vocabulary of some dialects of Quebec French

changer ‘to change’ /+aÇe/ N [hahe]

jupe ‘skirt’ /Çyp/ N [hvp]percher ‘to perch’ /p[˛+e/ N [p[˛he]

In (15), we show that the process may also apply to some well-established English loanwords,whose alveopalatal fricatives may then be realized as [h] in some Quebec French dialects.

(15) Phonetic [h] in established English loanwords in some dialects of Quebec French

shop ‘shop’ /+:p/ N [h:p]

shape ‘shape’ /+ep/ N [hep]

rusher ‘to rush’ /ÛR+/ N [˛ohe]


The importance of the fact that alveopalatal fricatives can be optionally realized as [h], even insome English loanwords, sets the stage for misidentifying English [h] (� /h/) as the surfacerealization of /+/ or /Ç/. According to phonetic approximation, /h/ in English loanwords shouldbe acceptable in those Quebec French dialects where it is found as a phonetic variant. Thus, theEnglish /h/ ([h]) should be identified as Quebec French [h] and hypercorrected to /+/ or /Ç/ orimported (hence pronounced) as is (i.e., English /h/N French /+/ or /Ç/N [h]), a case of phoneticapproximation according to (2B2b). Neither occurs. Despite the presence of [h] in the phoneticinventory of these dialects, /h/ in English loanwords is deleted, as it is in other dialects of Frenchthat do not have [h] as a phonetic variant. This happens in both established loanwords, as in(16a), and elicited forms, as in (16b).23

(16) Adaptation of [h] (�/h/) in English loanwords in Quebec French

English QF

a. hamburger /h+mbUÛtUÛ/ N [ ambUÛtUÛ] *[+/ÇambUÛtUÛ]

Hallowe’en /h+lowin/ N [ alowin] *[+/Çalowin]holdup /holdRp/ N [ old:p] *[+/Çold:p]

b. hammer /h+mUÛ/ N [ amUÛ] *[+/ÇamUÛ]hacker /h+kUÛ/ N [ akUÛ] *[+/ÇakUÛ]

This adaptation pattern suggests that English [h] (� /h/) is identified as an ill-formed foreignphoneme, rather than being equated with the [h] variant of an alveopalatal fricative.

Because the L2 /h/ is deleted in this case, rather than adapted, one might argue that it is aninstance of phonetic approximation according to (2A) whereby a sound is deleted because it isnot heard. There are arguments against this interpretation. First, native speakers of Quebec Frenchare readily able to identify the region of origin of other speakers, on the basis of the particularitiesof their accents. This includes identifying speakers from the Beauce, one of the dialect areas thathas [h] as a phonetic variant. One might assume that what is noted by speakers who do not havethis rule, /+/,/Ç/ N [h], is not the presence of [h], but the absence of /+/,/Ç/ (e.g., jupe /Çyp/ isheard as [ yp]). However, if asked to demonstrate the speech of those from the Beauce, QuebecFrench speakers easily mimic, sometimes with exaggerated emphasis, their substitution of [h] forthe alveopalatals. Also, for Quebec French speakers, as for all French speakers, [h] occurs inonomatopoetic words such as hah-hah (imitating the sound of laughter).

The ability to hear [h], even by those who do not have it in their own dialects of QuebecFrench is not surprising. It is a manifestation of what Scovel (1995:172) refers to as ‘‘the almostuncanny ability of listeners to recognize whether or not the voice belongs to a native speaker of. . . their mother tongue.’’ MacKay (1987:132) elaborates on this when he says that the absence

23 These data were obtained as part of a targeted experiment designed to discover whether English [h] (� /h/) wouldbe treated the same way by those dialects of Quebec French that have [h] as a phonetic variant as by those dialects ofFrench that do not.


of expected phonetic variants contributes heavily to the native speaker’s perception of a foreignaccent in another speaker. Thus, it is inconsistent to think that Quebec French borrowers cannothear [h] in English loanwords, even though they identify this sound as one of the hallmarks ofparticular dialects of their own language.

Yet another reason that /h/ deletion in English loanwords cannot be written off as nonpercep-tion is that /h/ is sometimes imported in the Montreal French corpus (12.8%; see table 2). Asound cannot be imported if it is not perceived. Finally, and most importantly, /h/ deletion inFrench can hardly be attributed to nonperception, because it has been shown to be phonologicallyprincipled and predictable (Paradis and LaCharite 2001). Deletion affects not just the English/h/, but all consonants characterized by a Pharyngeal node, such as Arabic gutturals /Ç, », h, ≈/,because the Pharyngeal node is what we call in Paradis and LaCharite 2001 an unavailableprimitive in French. This accounts for deletion of gutturals not only in French but also in otherlanguages, such as Italian and Portuguese. It is entirely predictable which languages will delete/h/ and other gutturals and which languages will adapt them. All of this suggests that phonology,not phonetics, is behind the deletion of /h/ in the English loanwords in Quebec French.

From the perspective of phonetic approximation, one might suggest that English [h] is per-ceived by Quebec French borrowers but that it is deleted in loanword adaptation because it isjudged to be phonetically closest to � in French. However, this presupposes that the borrowerknows that English [h] is really /h/; that is, the sound must be recognized as a phoneme of English.The borrower must also know that in English [h] � /+/ or /Ç/ (i.e., */h/N /+/ or /Ç/N [h]). Suchjudgments constitute phonological knowledge of L2. These two pieces of information would notbe available to themonolingual speaker of Quebec French, or to a Quebec French speaker operatingexclusively in L1 mode. Another weakness of this idea is that it does not account for the factthat other gutturals besides /h/ are systematically deleted in loanword adaptation in French. Itseems unlikely that the entire range of gutturals, which constitutes a phonetically diverse groupof sounds, should all be judged phonetically closest to � in all dialects of French.

To sum up the main point of this discussion, if loanword adaptation were driven by L1-guided perception of the surface form of the English word, then English [h] (� /h/) should beperceived by those dialects of Quebec French that have it as a phonetic variant. The fact that itstreatment in those dialects is identical to its treatment in dialects lacking this phonetic variantargues against the view that loanword adaptation refers to the surface form of the word. Moregenerally, the fact that phonetic variants in neither the source language nor the borrowing languageinfluence the treatment of unacceptable foreign sounds in the borrowings of the corpora indicatesto us that an L2 sound’s acceptability is judged at the phonemic, not the phonetic, level in loanwordadaptation.

5 Predicted Perceptual Metathesis

As discussed in previous sections, the primary adaptations of the Project CoPho database arephonologically driven (they seek the closest L1 phonological category, not the closest L1 acoustic


match). Although some cases among the secondary adaptations are clearly influenced by phoneticcues, secondary adaptations are generally rare (6.5%) and even then unlikely to always be dueto phonetic approximation, as discussed in section 2. Nevertheless, distinguishing phonetic approx-imation from phonological adaptation is not always straightforward, since in many cases what isphonologically close is also phonetically close. Thus, one might object that a phonology bias hasmisled us into overlooking phonetic approximation. For this reason, we studied some soundinterpretation behaviors (and mistakes) typical of monolinguals and beginning L2 learners andcompared them with the treatment of loanwords. Here, we consider the reordering of sounds inill-formed consonant clusters, an L1-perception bias, and we raise the question of whether thisbias is reflected in loanword adaptation.

In fusion studies, which involve dichotic listening tests where one word of a minimal pairis presented to the right ear and the other to the left ear, more or less simultaneously, monolingualsubjects merge the words, perceiving the merged sounds in a phonologically acceptable order,not necessarily in their actual order of presentation (Day 1968, Cutting 1975, Cutting and Day1975, Cena 1978). For instance, when /l&b/ and /b&b/ are dichotically presented, anglophonesubjects hear /bl&b/, even when /l&b/ is presented 100 milliseconds earlier (Day 1968, 1970, Cena1978). This occurs because */lb/ is not an acceptable onset cluster in English.

Most fusion studies have focused on onsets, but the study of coda consonants (which areeven more directly relevant to the present purpose) has not been entirely neglected, and suchstudies support the ideas put forward here. For instance, Day (1970) found a significant numberof fusions in reversible consonant clusters (e.g., tass and tack perceived as task or tacks), showing,first, that fusion in coda clusters does occur and, second, that phonetic cues on the vowel, whichdiffer depending on the nature of the following sound, do not necessarily dictate which consonantthe listener interprets as coming first. True, Cutting and Day (1975) found that fusion did notoccur as often in irreversible coda clusters; but when fusion did occur, it always favored a licitcoda cluster (e.g., peed and peel were always perceived as peeled, not *peedl).

If loanword adaptation were based on L1-referenced perception, then we should find somecases where clusters permitted in one language are misperceived as being differently ordered byspeakers of a language that does not permit such clusters. French loanwords in English permitus to test this prediction because French allows coda clusters in which an obstruent is followedby a sonorant, as shown in (17).

(17) Examples of obstruent-sonorant coda clusters in French

/tr/ maıtre ‘master’; pietre ‘very poor; mediocre’/bl/ coupable ‘guilty’; faible ‘weak’/kl/ couvercle ‘cover/lid’; siecle ‘century’/sm/ militantisme ‘militancy’; isthme ‘isthmus’/vr/ livre ‘book’; levre ‘lip’

English, on the other hand, does not allow an obstruent to be followed by a sonorant consonant


in the coda, though those same segments occur in the contrary order in English, as is well known(e.g., short, bulb, elk, nerve).

Recall that the phonetic approximation view holds that loanword adaptation is based on aperception/interpretation of L2 sounds that is often faulty—faulty because it is referenced solelyto L1. This predicts that French coda clusters such as those seen in (17) will often be perceived byAnglophones in the reverse order, in accordance with an anglophone perceptual bias. In particular,phonetic approximation predicts the kind of perceptual metathesis exemplified in (18).

(18) Predicted adaptations in English

French English Hypothetical metatheses in French loans

/tr/ N [Ût] Fr. kilometre [kil:m[t¸] N Eng. *[kUl&mUÛt]

/bl/ N [lb] Fr. viable [viabl] N Eng. *[vi&lb]

/kl/ N [lk] Fr. debacle [debakl] N Eng. *[debalk]

/sm/ N [mz] Fr. chauvinisme [+ovinism] N Eng. *[+ovinimz]

/vr/ N [Ûv] Fr. chevre [+[v¸] N Eng. *[+UÛv]

This L1 perception bias could even be exacerbated by the fact that metathesis is found dialectally,or even idiolectically, in the native vocabulary in English. For instance, words like iron, modern,and nuclear may be pronounced [aiÛUn], [m&dÛUn], and [nukjulUÛ], rather than [aiUÛn], [m&dUÛn],and [nukliUÛ]. This presumably occurs to improve the sonority profile of the syllable, which wouldalso be the result if it were applied to these French obstruent-sonorant clusters. Thus, the penchantfor perceiving sounds in a phonologically acceptable order, coupled with the fact that metathesisoperates in English, means that there is no obvious reason not to expect metathesis in loanwordadaptation, if loanword adaptation is driven by an L1-referenced perception/interpretation bias.

We tested this expectation against Project CoPho’s corpus of 1,667 French loanword formsin North American English, part of which is appended to Lamoureux 2000. However, as shownin (19), perceptual metathesis never occurs in the obstruent-sonorant clusters of Project CoPho’sFrench loanwords in English.

(19) The treatment of French obstruent-sonorant clusters in English

No. of cases /bl/ /br/ /kl/ /sm/ /tr/ /vr/ Total

French clusters 16 2 9 26 26 2 81Adaptation by metathesis 0 0 0 0 0 0 0Adaptation by epenthesis 13 1 8 26 23 2 73 (90.1%)Adaptation by deletion 2 1 1 0 1 0 5 (6.2%)Nonadaptations 1 0 0 0 2 0 3 (3.7%)

Most obstruent-sonorant coda clusters in French loanwords in English (90.1%) are repairedthrough vowel epenthesis either within the cluster (the vast majority of cases), as in (20a), or atthe end of the cluster, as in (20b).


(20) Examples of the treatment of French obstruent-sonorant clusters in English

French English

a. viable ‘viable’ [viabl] N [vajUbUl]

kilometre ‘kilometer’ [kilom[t¸] N [kël&mUtUÛ]

sadisme ‘sadism’ [sadism] N [s+dëzUm]

debacle ‘debacle’ [deb&kl] N [dUb+kUl] / [dUb&kUl]

b. chevre ‘goat cheese’ [+[v˛] N [+[vÛU]raison d’etre ‘reason for being’ [¸ez:d[t˛] N [Ûez&ndetÛU]

In sum, the expectation of perceptual metathesis is not met, undermining the idea that L1-guidedperception is the driving force behind loanword adaptation.

Yet one might wonder whether the epenthesis seen in the adaptations in (20) is a perception-level alternative to metathesis.24 Perception studies, such as that of Pitt (1998), have sometimesbeen cited as evidence that epenthesis is a perception-level repair strategy. Although this interpreta-tion is suspect since perception studies generally, including Pitt’s, clearly show how stronglyperception is shaped by phonology and how difficult it is to ‘‘turn phonology off,’’ we willnonetheless briefly consider this hypothesis.

Pitt’s study shows that American English speakers hear syllables beginning with illicit clus-ters such as */tl+/ as being bisyllabic (/tUl+/). In other words, English speakers perceive anexcrescent vowel between the two consonants of the illicit cluster. However, vowel insertionresponses are often elicited by manipulating the acoustic signal. In Pitt’s study, for example, thesteady state portion of the liquid in the illicit cluster was lengthened, which inclined listeners tohear an excrescent vowel even in licit cluster syllables (e.g., /tr+/ was often perceived as [tUÛ+]).The question raised is why in real speech, such as in the French loanwords, where the signal isnot artificially altered, excrescent vowel insertion would consistently be perceptually favored overmetathesis.

An answer following from the approach taken by Steriade (2001) might be that epenthesisis consistently favored over metathesis because it results in better perceptual cues to place ofarticulation of the stop than metathesis would. For example, if debacle [debakl] were adapted as*[deb&lk], the stop would end up in word-final position, where its place of articulation is lessperceptible than when it appears in prevocalic position, as is the case when it is adapted to[deb&kUl]. We accept that prevocalic position better highlights the place features of stops, butdoubt that this explains epenthesis in the adaptation of these French loanwords in English. True,in fricative-sonorant clusters, epenthesis tends to follow the cluster (e.g., French chevre /+[vr/‘goat cheese’ N English [+evrU]), which might be taken as evidence for the perceptual account.

24 The change found in the loanwords might also be seen as the vocalization of the sonorant consonant, rather thanepenthesis. In our view, this is an equally plausible phonological adaptation; it involves the insertion of a nucleus torepair an ill-formed syllabic constituent, but differs from epenthesis in associating the sonorant consonant to the insertednucleus, rather than filling it with an epenthetic vowel. However, whether this repair is epenthesis or vocalization, ourargument remains the same.


The idea here would be that the place features of fricatives are inherently more robustly cued thanthose of stops, so epenthesis following the stop would be more likely than epenthesis immediatelyfollowing the fricative. However, the example raison d’etre in (20b) shows that postcluster—asopposed to intracluster—epenthesis is not confined to fricative-sonorant clusters. More problem-atic than this, though, is the fact that epenthesis does not occur elsewhere in fricative-stop clustersor stop-stop sequences of the corpus. If the perceptual salience of stops were the primary concernin the adaptation of obstruent-sonorant clusters, and intracluster epenthesis an often-optimal re-sponse to this concern, then we would expect epenthesis elsewhere in the database, for examplein words such as those in (21).

(21) Examples of French loanwords in English where epenthesis might apply but does notFrench English

a. artiste [a¸tëst] → [&Ûtëst] *[&ÛtëstU]negritude [net¸ityd] → [n[tÛëtud] *[n[tÛëtudU]

b. infrastructure [[f¸ast¸ykty¸] → [ënfÛUstÛRkt+UÛ] *[ënfÛUstÛRkUt+UÛ]narcoleptique [na¸kol[ptëk] → [n&Ûkol[ptëk] *[n&Ûkol[pUtëk]

c. metrique [metrik] → [m[tÛëk] *[m[tUÛëk]neglige [netliÇe] → [n[tliÇe] *[n[tUliÇe]

The words in (21a) present stops in final position, following a fricative, where stops are particularlysusceptible to going unperceived. Yet words such as artiste are not adapted as *[&ÛtëstU]. Theexamples in (21b) contain immediately adjacent stops, another environment in which stops areespecially prone to deletion or assimilation. But epenthesis does not occur here either (e.g.,narcoleptique is not adapted as *[n&Ûkol[pUtëk]). The examples in (21c) contain stop-sonorantsequences where the salience of the stop appears to be unproblematic, since we do not findepenthesis in these cases (e.g., metrique is not adapted as *[m[tUÛëk]). Epenthesis would presum-ably optimize the perceptual saliency of the stop in all the above cases, yet it occurs only in thefinal obstruent-sonorant clusters. This suggests that English syllable structure constraints, ratherthan the stop’s perceptual saliency, is behind epenthesis in final obstruent-sonorant clusters.

Before leaving the topic of obstruent-sonorant clusters in French loanwords in English, wewill briefly consider the deletion cases, which might also be interpreted as instances of phoneticapproximation. One reason for not being too quick to ascribe these deletions to phonetic approxi-mation is that deletion of the sonorant occurs optionally in all dialects of French, including QuebecFrench (Ostiguy, Sarrasin, and Irons 1996, Brousseau and Nikiema 2001, Cote 2002). Therefore,final consonant deletion could conceivably be a conscious emulation of an authentic Frenchpronunciation, rather than being due to lack of perception. That is, deletions may be intentionalimports. However, final consonant deletion is infrequent in the corpus (6.2%), so it would notpresent a strong case for phonetic approximation in any case.

We conclude that the complete absence of perceptual metathesis in the adaptation of theseFrench loanwords in English, coupled with the very low rate of deletion, challenges the idea thatloanword adaptation is powered by L1-referenced perception of the surface form of the word.


Although the French obstruent-sonorant coda clusters are ill formed in English, their adaptationnever reflects a well-attested L1 perceptual bias. This suggests that they are correctly perceived/interpreted, as they occur in French and if they are not imported, they are phonologically repaired.

6 Predicted Phoneme Mismatches

We now turn to three predicted cases of phoneme mismatches—that is, cases where a borrowinglanguage, despite having a given phoneme in its own inventory, is expected, for phonetic reasons,to misclassify that phoneme when it occurs in words borrowed from another language.

Understandably, studies of loanword adaptation tend to focus heavily on what happens toL2 segments and structures that do not occur in L1: these are referred to as being ill formed orillicit. The interpretation of L2 phonemes that also occur in L1 has garnered less attention. Theimplicit assumption is that borrowers should have no difficulty recognizing and correctly matchingup an L2 phoneme that corresponds to a phoneme in their L1. For example, the coronal stops ofFrench toute de suite ‘immediately’ ([tut (d) sÑit]) are not expected to pose any difficulty forAnglophones because English, like French, has phonemic /t/, in the same type of environment(e.g., English toot, taught, sweet, sweat). Yet there is a large body of data indicating that the precisephonetic realization of a given phoneme is different from language to language. Pierrehumbert,Beckman, and Ladd (2000:286) put this in very strong terms, stating that ‘‘there is no knowncase of two corresponding phonemes in two languages having fully comparable denotations.’’For example, English and French each realize their /t/ phoneme quite differently. Among otherthings, the /t/ of English is generally realized as an apical alveolar, while that of French is realizedmostly as an apicolaminal dental (see Dart 1998 for a detailed articulatory comparison of Frenchand English coronal consonants). On the perceptual side, even the untrained ear can detect thatthe French /t/ and the English /t/ do not sound exactly the same.

Clearly, language-specific phonetic implementation of a given phoneme is of importancehere because it raises the possibility of phoneme mismatches, as hypothesized by Silverman (1992:289) when he says that ‘‘despite the identity of a given acoustic signal when impinging upon theinner ear of speakers of different languages, this input may be perceived, represented and ulti-mately produced in a distinct manner in each language it enters.’’ That is, the phonetic attributesassociated with a given phonological category in L2 may be associated with a different phonemeor phoneme class in L1, leading to the misidentification of the L2 phoneme. Such mismatchesare well documented in the crosslinguistic perception literature and in studies of early L2 learners.Apparently, monolinguals and early L2 learners—despite having a given phoneme in their L1inventory—often misclassify various L2 sounds because they rely on the phonetic cues used inL1 to make the phonemic classification.

The Project CoPho database permitted us to compare loanword adaptations with the phoneticapproximation predictions suggested by two well-studied cases of phoneme mismatching. Thefirst case concerns the interpretation of the English onset rhotic by Japanese speakers, which iscompared with the adaptation of the rhotic in English loanwords in Japanese. The second caseconcerns the interpretation of English voiced onset stops by Spanish speakers, which is comparedwith the adaptation of voiced stops in English loanwords in Spanish. We also consider the adapta-


tion of English voiced stops in Italian, since they might be expected to pose the same difficultiesfor Italian speakers as for Spanish speakers, for the same phonetic reason.

6.1 The Adaptation of the English Rhotic in Japanese

Both English and Japanese have a single rhotic phoneme in their respective segment inventories,but that phoneme is phonetically very different in the two languages. The English rhotic is mostcommonly a palatoalveolar central approximant, [Û], while the Japanese rhotic is realized as analveolar tap, [˜]. Thus, the two sounds differ phonetically in both place and manner of articulation,both of which are important perceptual dimensions. In perceptual terms, the English rhotic ismuch closer to the realization of Japanese labiovelar glide /w/ ([w]) than to that of the Japaneserhotic (Mochizuki 1981, Yamada and Tohkura 1991). The perceptual closeness of [Û] to [w] maynot come as a surprise to English speakers, given that young anglophone children usually confusethe two sounds when they start to speak, typically producing forms such as cry *[kwaj] and very*[v[wi] before they master the adultlike pronunciations [kÛaj] and [v[Ûi] (MacKay 1987:193).The substitution of [w] for [Û] can also occur in abnormal English speech (Ohde and Scharf1992).25

On the basis of the perceptual similarity between English [Û] and Japanese [w], Best andStrange (1992) predicted that American English [Û] would be identified by Japanese speakers asa poor exemplar of the Japanese labiovelar phoneme, rather than as a rhotic. This prediction wastested with two groups of Japanese speakers, one of which had very little experience with spokenEnglish (Japanese monolinguals), the other of which had much more experience with spokenEnglish (Japanese-English bilinguals). In all the stimuli, [Û] occurred in syllable-onset position.26

As predicted, Japanese monolinguals were significantly more likely to interpret English onset[Û] as an exemplar of /w/. In contrast, Japanese-English bilinguals performed much more like(though not identically to) the American English controls. That is, they were significantly morelikely than Japanese monolinguals to classify English [Û] as a rhotic, rather than as /w/. In sum,those Japanese speakers with little or no exposure to spoken English classified the English onsetrhotic on phonetic grounds, while those with more experience classified it on phonologicalgrounds.

25 By ‘‘abnormal speech,’’ we mean speech that for pathological reasons deviates from standard North AmericanEnglish in substituting [w] for [Û].

26 As Browman (1980:224) states, ‘‘The strength of the acoustic signal varies in relation to syllable structure andword structure: there is more information syllable-finally and word-finally.’’ The prevocalic (onset) position is perceptuallyless salient than the postvocalic (coda) position for two reasons. First, the vowel carries more phonetic information aboutthe place, manner, and voicing of a following consonant than a preceding one (Browman 1980:224). Second, in real wordstimuli, lexical effects can confound perception (MacKay 1987:288). The speaker of a language perceives the sounds inwords somewhat conditionally, with lexical information often overruling acoustic information. In effect, as soon as thetarget word is identified (which can happen before the word is fully pronounced), the speaker may decide what will beheard even before it is heard. This can skew the perception results for those familiar with the language (native speakersand bilinguals), but not for those unfamiliar with the language who have little or no access to lexical information. Therefore,tests of consonant perception that aim at distinguishing the acoustic/perceptual correlates of one language group versusthose of another are often considered to be more reliable when the consonant occurs in initial position (with nonsenseor unknown words or syllables).


Under the phonetic approximation view of loanword adaptation, we therefore expect to finda significant rate of adaptation of English onset [Û] to Japanese /w/ in English loanwords inJapanese. We tested this hypothesis against the Project CoPho corpus of 2,991 English loanwordforms in Japanese, part of which is appended to Goulet 2001. These Japanese loanword formsinclude a total of 668 cases of English onset /r/ ([Û]). As shown in (22), English /r/ is neverinterpreted as /w/ in the corpus.

(22) Treatment of English onset /r/ ([Û]) in Japanese

Number of cases 668Phonetic approximation cases ([Û] N [w]) 0Same phoneme cases ([Û] N [r]) 668Deletion cases 0

As these figures show, English onset /r/ is always treated as a rhotic phoneme. Examples arepresented in (23).

(23) Examples of the treatment of onset /r/ ([Û]) in English loanwords in Japanese

English Japanese

a. race [Ûes] N [res:æ] *[wes:æ]

b. rock [Û&k] N [rok:æ] *[wok:æ]

c. cherry [t+[Ûi] N [t+[ri:] *[t+[wi:]d. truck [tÛRk] N [torak:æ] *[towak:æ]

e. scrap [skÛ+p] N [sækærap:æ] *[sækæwap:æ]

For the sake of thoroughness, we further considered the treatment of English onset labiovelarglides in English loanwords in Japanese, wondering whether theymight not sometimes be confusedwith the English rhotic. In other words, if Japanese borrowers are unable to discriminate the twosounds, but are aware that there is a distinction, they might choose one or the other randomly.However, this never occurs, as shown in (24).

(24) Treatment of onset /w/ in English loanwords in Japanese

Number of cases 137Phonetic approximation cases (English /w/ N Japanese /r/) 0Same phoneme cases (English /w/ N Japanese /w/) 137Deletion cases 0

All the onset /w/s that occur in English loanwords in Japanese are interpreted as /w/. Althoughperception tests of Japanese monolinguals show that they confuse English onset /r/ with Japanese/w/, this confusion is decidedly not mirrored in the corpus of English loanwords in Japanese. Theexceptionless treatment of English onset /r/ as a rhotic, despite its closer phonetic similarity toJapanese /w/, suggests that loanword adaptation is phonological rather than phonetic. Once again


the facts of loanword adaptation fail to support the view that loanword adaptation is based onphonetic approximation.

6.2 The Adaptation of English Voiced Stops in Spanish and Italian

Voice onset time (VOT) differences distinguish voiced from voiceless stops across languages,but the precise implementation of VOT is language-specific (Ryalls 1996, Benkı 1998:16, amongmany others). In Spanish, as in (European) French, voiced stops are normally characterized bya negative VOT, which means that vocal fold vibration begins before the release of the plosive.In the production of Spanish voiceless plosives, vocal fold vibration begins within 30 millisecondsof release, often immediately on release. In contrast, English implements the voiced versus voice-less stop distinction very differently, phonetically speaking: for English stops considered voiced,vocal fold vibration begins within 0–30 milliseconds of release, while those classed as voicelessare characterized by a VOT generally in excess of 50 milliseconds (Ryalls 1996:51). This issummarized in (25).

(25) VOT correlates of stops in Spanish versus English

Phonetic implementation

Phonological value Spanish English

Voiced /b, d, g/ �VOT (�40–0 msec) �VOT (0–30 msec)Voiceless /p, t, k/ �VOT (0–30 msec) �VOT (� 50 msec)

The important point here is that what English classifies as voiced stops are, from the Spanishphonetic point of view, voiceless. Interestingly, Spanish speakers are noted to confuse the voicedand voiceless stops when they begin to speak English (Nathan 1987, Kelly 2000:144), and thereis abundant evidence that this is not just a pronunciation problem. Several cross-cultural perceptionstudies show that monolingual Spanish and English speakers classify onset stops as voiced orvoiceless according to the VOT norms of their respective native language (Williams 1977, Flegeand Eefting 1986, Strange 1995). In other words, listeners hear the same onset stimulus as voicedor voiceless, depending on whether they are (monolingual) native speakers of English or Spanish.

Interestingly, increased exposure to English changes the listener’s perception of the voicingdistinction. As Spanish speakers become more familiar with spoken English, the point at whichthey identify a stimulus as voiced rather than voiceless changes, approaching the crossover pointfor Anglophones (Williams 1979, Flege and Eefting 1987, Nathan 1987). In brief, monolingualSpanish speakers classify English stops on phonetic grounds, leading to their (mis)identificationas voiceless, in accordance with the VOT values of Spanish. However, as English proficiencyimproves, the VOT value boundary approaches that of English monolinguals, with the classifica-tion performance of Spanish-English bilinguals being comparable to that of English monolinguals.

If loanword adaptation were effected on the basis of L1-guided perception of the surfacephonetic form, in accordance with the phonetic approximation view, then Spanish borrowers


should interpret English stops in accordance with Spanish VOT norms. Thus, we should seeEnglish voiced onset stops often being adapted as voiceless in English loanwords in Spanish. Wewere able to test this expectation against a total corpus of 3,857 English loanword forms in twocorpora of Mexican Spanish (MS1 and MS2). The corpora include a total of 1,368 English voicedstops (/b, d, g/) in onset position, which is what perception experiments tested.

As we show in (26), none of the English onset voiced stops undergo devoicing in MS1; inMS2, there are only 2 cases of onset stop devoicing.

(26) Statistics on the treatment of voiced onset stops in English loanwords in MexicanSpanish

/b/ /d/ /t/ Total

MS1 Number of cases 289 161 116 566Phonetic approximation 0 0 0 0cases (devoicing)Same phoneme cases 289 161 115 565

(100%) (100%) (99.1%) (99.8%)Deletion cases 0 0 1 1

(0.9%) (0.2%)

MS2 Number of cases 394 229 179 802Phonetic approximation 0 2 0 2cases (devoicing) (0.9%) (0.2%)Same phoneme cases 393 226 179 798

(99.7%) (98.7%) (100%) (99.5%)Deletion cases 1 1 0 2

(0.3%) (0.4%) (0.2%)

The English voiced onset stops remain as is—that is, voiced and undeleted—in all but threecases. Some examples of the usual treatment of English voiced stops in English loanwords inMS are shown in (27).

(27) Examples of unchanged voiced stops in English loanwords in Mexican Spanish

English Spanish

/b/ bar [b&Û] N [ba˜] *[pa˜]

baseball [besb&l] N [besb:l] *[pesp:l]

/d/ dip [dëp] N [dip] *[tip]

darling [d&Ûlë√] N [da˜lin] *[ta˜lin]

/t/ golf [t&lf] N [t:lf] *[k:lf]

gang [t+√] N [ta«] *[ka«]

As for the rare deletion cases, these are not necessarily clear cases of phonetic approximation.For instance, background [b+ktÛ&wnd] is adapted as [bakr&wn] in Spanish, which may possibly


be a case of the /t/ assimilating to the preceding /k/, instead of being truly deleted. A secondexample of onset stop deletion occurs in the word baking powder, which was pronounced [bekë√-pa

˘wUÛ]. As already mentioned in the discussion of the flapped coronal stops, this particular

deletion may be influenced by false analogy to power.In spite of the fact that English voiced stops are phonetically closer to Spanish voiceless

ones, the English voiced stops in loanwords are obviously considered to be voiced. That is tosay, Mexican Spanish–speaking borrowers treat them according to their phonological status, noton the basis of their phonetic implementation in English.

Another language group that might be expected to misinterpret the voiced stops of Englishare the speakers of Calabrese Italian, because Italian, like Spanish, has a VOT value for voicedstops that is either negative or 0 (Gracco 1990, Torgersen 2001). That is to say, unlike in English,voicing begins before, or simultaneously with, the release of the closure for voiced stops of Italian.Italian speakers learning English are further noted to confuse English voiced and voiceless stops(MacKay et al. 2001). Yet, as discussed in Savard, in progress, out of 1,535 voiced onset stopsthat occur in the Project CoPho corpus of English loanwords in Calabrese Italian, the voiced stopsof English are never replaced by voiceless ones. Nor are they ever deleted. For instance, Englishbulldog [bυld&t]N Italian [buldot] *[pultot] and English boogie-woogie [bυtiwυti]N Italian[butiwuti] *[pukiwuki]. The pertinent statistics are presented in (28).

(28) Statistics on the treatment of English voiced onset stops in Calabrese Italian

/b/ /d/ /t/ Total

Number of cases 663 656 216 1,535Phonetic approximation cases 0 0 0 0(devoicing)Same phoneme cases 663 656 216 1,535Deletion cases 0 0 0 0

To sum up our findings, the study of English loanwords in Mexican Spanish and CalabreseItalian reveals that English stops are interpreted phonemically by both Spanish- and Italian-speaking borrowers (Danesi (1985) reaches the same conclusion about English loanwords inCanadian Italian). Voiced English stops are evidently not interpreted in accordance with the L1-referenced perception of their surface phonetic characteristics. Thus, the prediction of the phoneticapproximation view for the adaptation of voiced stops in these languages is disconfirmed.

7 Discussion and Conclusion

In this article, we have tried to show that loanword adaptation cannot be considered a phoneticoperation; it must be viewed as a largely phonological one. We first defined phonetic approxima-tion in specific, operational terms and we then looked for evidence of its effects in a large andvaried loanword database. As part of this search, we compared the perception/interpretation ofsounds by monolinguals confronted with crosslinguistic stimuli to the adaptations found in theloanword database. In every case, we found that the predictions of the phonetic approximation


stance were resoundingly disconfirmed. In section 2, we looked for evidence of phonetic approxi-mation among the secondary adaptations of the database, but secondary adaptations constituteonly 6.5% of the adaptations even under the interpretation of the data that is most favorable tophonetic approximation. Hence, it does not support the idea that phonetic approximation hasmuch influence in loanword adaptation. We then turned, in section 3, to the question of whetherthe main adaptations might hide phonetic approximation. Though it is often difficult to distinguishbetween phonetic and phonological adaptation, since both would yield the same outcomes inmany cases, we showed that where it is possible to distinguish them, the sound adaptations foundin loanwords decisively disconfirm the predictions of phonetic approximation and heavily favorthe phonological view. In section 4, we showed that phonetic variants in either the source or theborrowing language play basically no role in loanword adaptation, though L2 surface variantsthat correspond to L1 phonemes and L2 phonemes that correspond to L1 surface variants shouldbe readily perceived even by monolinguals. In sections 5 and 6, we turned our attention to thecrosslinguistic perception literature that compares how monolinguals perceive/interpret input and,especially, how the performance of monolinguals compares with that of bilinguals. This furnishedspecific predictions following from the phonetic approximation stance that could be comparedwith the adaptations found in loanwords. In every case, these predictions failed to match whatactually occurs in the adaptations of the loanword database. We concluded that, if the massivedatabase that we have considered is representative of loanwords and loanword adaptation, thenadaptation is clearly a phonological operation, not a case of misperception or misinterpretationof the surface form of the foreign word.

Since it is phonological, it follows that loanword adaptation provides one of the richest andmost readily available sources of information regarding the functioning of phonology. Manylanguages do not have the complexmorphological systems or phonological processes that phonolo-gists heavily depend upon for information about a language; but most, if not all, languages borrowwords from other languages. Through loanword adaptations we gain insight into, among otherthings, the constraints of the borrowing language, segment and syllable structure, and ultimately,the workings of the human phonological capacity. As expressed by Danesi (1985:4), ‘‘Throughthe analysis of loanword data, the analyst is given the chance to see the system ‘in action’, so tospeak.’’

Because of length limitations, we have not been able, in this article, to address every singlecase that might at first sight be interpreted as phonetic approximation. For instance, we have notdiscussed coda /r/ deletion (yielding vowel lengthening) in English loanwords in Japanese. Thoughcoda /r/ deletion in loanword adaptation has been cited as evidence for phonetic approximation(see, e.g., Kenstowicz 2001), it is a line of inquiry that demands an in-depth treatment (and shouldbe the topic of a separate article). Nonetheless, we do not foresee coda /r/ deletion as posing athreat to the points made in this article, given that /r/ is a very vowellike segment prone to fusingwith the preceding vowel, hence causing compensatory vowel lengthening, and that so-calledcoda /r/ deletion also applies natively to different rhotics (coronal, uvular, tapped, trilled, etc.) inmany diverse languages, including Quebec French.

We further hasten to add that we do not intend to suggest that phonetics has no role in


loanword adaptation. While loanword adaptation may be phonological, it must be well informedby phonetics, as is the case in L1. For instance, the Spanish-speaking borrower who interpretsEnglish voiced stops according to English VOT norms has at some level come to grips with thefact that a stop with a short-lag VOT is, from the point of view of English, voiced. The borrowerhas learned to interpret the phonetic cues in relation to the phonetics-phonology interface ofEnglish. So phonetics is not irrelevant; it is crucial to phonological decision-making and it isthis level of representation that is considered when sounds are imported. Nonetheless, we haveendeavored to show that loanword adaptation, per se, is phonological. Our goal here was not toprovide detailed phonological analyses of the loanword adaptations, but to show that loanwordadaptations are, indeed, categorical.

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Department of Languages, Linguistics and TranslationLaval UniversitySte-Foy, QuebecCanada G1K 7P4

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