Book Description

This book aims to explore which factors and to what extent these factors affect loanword phonology by conducting acoustic experiments and corpus studies. Two typologically different languages, Mandarin Chinese and Korean (spoken by Seoul Korean and Korean Chinese in Northern part of China), are recruited into the research to propose more scientific and more comprehensive generalizations for loanword phonology. First, this book determines the acoustic properties of Korean dialects. Then, corpus studies are conducted to compute which cues exert influence in the adaptation process. The results argue that distinctive features or primary acoustic cues of the borrowing languages greatly affect the process in loanword phonology synchronically. Further, this book explores the role of other influential factors such as frequency on shaping the adaptation process diachronically. Frequency is attested as an important factor in systematizing the perceptual adaptation into phonological adaptation. A cross-linguistic study provides not only the synchronic evidence of phonetic approximation in loanword adaptation but also diachronic support of the systematization of loanword phonology. This book makes contributions to research methodologies of acoustic experiments across languages and sheds light on the understanding of the complexity of loanword phonology synchronically and diachronically.