Japanese loanword phonology in Optimality Theory: The nature of inputs and the loanword sublexicon

This dissertation deals with issues surrounding loanword phonology, more specifically issues surrounding the phonology of English loanwords in Japanese such as the nature of inputs to loanword adaptation and the structure of the Loanword sublexicon. This dissertation discusses four phonological phenomena observed in English loanwords in Japanese within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT: Prince and Smolensky 1993). The four phonological phenomena are: accentuation of English loanwords (Chapter 3), the realization of English /r/ (Chapter 4), the realization of the English plural morpheme (Chapter 5), and English compound abbreviation (Chapter 6).;The organization of this dissertation is as follows. Chapter 1 is a general introduction and Chapter 2 introduces the background relevant to this dissertation. Chapter 3 argues what information is included in the input. Showing that the majority of English loanwords in two major dialects of Japanese (Kansai Japanese and Tokyo Japanese) retain the English accent, i.e. the accent on the syllable stressed in English, I claim that the information on the locus of English stress is included in the input and Japanese borrowers have access to it. In Chapter 4, I claim that the inputs to phonological processes are perceived segments. With regard to the nature of the input, it is not clear whether the input is based on the phonetic representation of the source language (Silverman 1992) or the phonological one (Paradis and LaCharité 1997). Based on the fact that the onset /r/ and the coda /r/ in English are realized differently in Japanese, I adopt Silverman's model and further claim that an input segment can be perceived differently based on its location. Chapter 5 discusses who borrows loanwords. The English plural morpheme is treated differently from the stem in Japanese. This suggests that morphological information is included in the input and Japanese borrowers have access to it. Also, the different treatment of the plural morpheme and the stem indicates that Japanese borrowers have the knowledge of English morphology. This chapter also deals with the generation gap with respect to the accessibility to the morphological information of English. Chapter 6 as well as Chapter 3 and 4 concerns assimilation processes to the core part of the Japanese lexicon. Assimilation processes with regard to deaccentuation and the avoidance of the word-final [a:] are discussed in this dissertation. Those assimilation processes reveal that prosodic features can be assimilated to the core part of the Japanese lexicon more easily. Finally, this dissertation is closed in Chapter 7 by summarizing the discussion and claims developed in this study.;Major claims of this dissertation are as follows. First, the inputs to phonological processes are perceived segments, which supports Silverman (1992), and an input segment can be perceived differently based on its location. Second, English loanwords in Japanese are introduced by limited bilinguals, i.e. Japanese-English bilinguals with the knowledge of English morphology but not necessarily with the knowledge of English phonology (cf. Paradis and LaCharité (1997)). Third, the information on the locus of English stress and English morphology is included in the input and Japanese borrowers have access to it. Also, this dissertation shows that the accessibility to English morphology has been changing over generations. Finally, with regard to the assimilation process, prosodic features can be assimilated more easily.