8 Loanword phonology

Epenthetic vowel production of unfamiliar medial consonant clusters by Japanese speakers

“…The baseline hypothesis would be that the quality of epenthetic vowels would be similar to patterns found in lexicalized loanword phonology, i.e., [ɯ] after labials and velars, [o] after alveolar stops, and [i] after palatals. After labial and velar consonants, the present study did indeed find that the quality of the epenthetic vowel was quite consistently [ɯ], as has been found in studies of Japanese loanword adaptation (Hirayama, 2003;Kubozono, 2015;Yazawa et al, 2015). However, the current results diverge from those predicted from loanword studies and those found in Yazawa et al (2015) in the alveolar and palatal contexts.…”

“…Especially given the varying results across the various recent production and perception studies, it would be premature to try to come up with an explanation for any given set of results. That said, the independent observations that the typical phonotactic constraints in loanword adaptation are loosening (e.g., Pintér, 2008Pintér, , 2015Hall, 2013;Kubozono, 2015) suggest at least one pathway of change. Specifically, if there is no longer a phonotactic constraint against the sequence [dɯ] (at least in loanwords), then there is no reason not to use the default epenthetic vowel [ɯ] in this context just as in the labial and velar contexts, exactly as seen in the current results.…”

“…Vowel epenthesis is a common repair strategy used by speakers to adapt loanwords that contain unfamiliar phonological structure in the borrowing language (e.g., Davidson, 2006;Fleischhacker, 2001;Hall, 2011;Kabak & Idsardi, 2007;Kang, 2011;Uffmann, 2006). Such is the case in Japanese where vowel epenthesis serves to make non-native structures more native-like (e.g., Hirayama, 2003;Itô, 1989;Smith, 2006;Kubozono, 2015). For example, the English word 'pipe ' [paɪp] is commonly pronounced as [paɪpɯ] with [ɯ] occurring in word-final position, as consonants other than [ɴ] do not occur word-finally in Japanese (Kubozono, 2015).…”

“…Such is the case in Japanese where vowel epenthesis serves to make non-native structures more native-like (e.g., Hirayama, 2003;Itô, 1989;Smith, 2006;Kubozono, 2015). For example, the English word 'pipe ' [paɪp] is commonly pronounced as [paɪpɯ] with [ɯ] occurring in word-final position, as consonants other than [ɴ] do not occur word-finally in Japanese (Kubozono, 2015). The adaptation of unfamiliar consonant sequences by epenthesis in Japanese has served as a test case for studying the influence of native speech experience on speech perception and production (e.g., Dupoux, Kakehi, Hirose, Pallier, & Mehler, 1999;Dupoux, Pallier, Kakehi, & Mehler, 2001;Dupoux, Parlato, Frota, Hirose, & Peperkamp, 2011;Monahan, Takahashi, Nakao, & Idsardi, 2009;Peperkamp & Dupoux, 2003;Shoji & Shoji, 2014;Sperbeck, 2012;Yazawa, Konishi, Hanzawa, Short, & Kondo, 2015).…”

English orthographic forms affect L2 English speech production in native users of a non-alphabetic writing system

“…English consonants written with double letters can undergo gemination in loanwords; for example, inner /ˈɪnə/ is adapted in Japanese with a geminate /nː/, becoming /inːaː/. Gemination can even distinguish minimal pairs of loanwords, such as /bagu/ "bug" and /bagːu/ "bag" (English /bʌg/ and /baeg/ respectively; Kawagoe, 2015;Kubozono, 2015b). English tense and lax vowels can be adapted as the same vowel qualitatively, but with different duration; for instance, /ɪ/ in pin /pɪn/ is adapted as Japanese /i/ in the loanword /piN/, whereas /iː/ in key /kiː/ becomes /iː/ in the loanword /kiː/ (Irwin, 2011).…”