| This dissertation is about Chinese loanwords. It is mainly divided into two parts. Part I is a general discussion about loanwords in Chinese; Chapter I and II belong to the first part. Part II is a discussion about the analyses of Mandarin loanwords originating from English. Chapter III, IV, and V are all related to the second part. Chapter VI is the conclusion, which includes the summary, limitations and contributions of the dissertation. The main arguments are shown in Chapter II, IV, and V: Lexical stratification, Adaptation, and Important factors.;There are three main issues regarding Mandarin loanwords: Japanese graphic loans, semantic loans, and alphabetic loans. The previous two are very similar with the native Chinese words, while the last one is very different from the Chinese language. Therefore, there are debates of whether or not they should be considered Chinese loanwords. This dissertation provides a reasonable answer for the problems by using Ito and Mester's (1995, 1999, 2001) core-periphery structure.;English-based Mandarin loanwords are commonly used in Chinese people's daily life. This dissertation shows how English phonemes map into Mandarin phonemes through Mandarin loanwords adaptation. The consonantal adaptations are the most important in the analyses, but it includes the vowel adaptation and tonal adaptation too. Through the analyses, it proves that the functions of phonology and phonetics play a significant role in Mandarin loanword adaptation. Therefore, this dissertation supports the phonetics-phonology approach in loanword phonology. Even though phonetics and phonology are the most important factors in Mandarin loanword phonology, the functions of many other factors, such as semantic functions of Chinese characters and English orthography, are also discussed. Additionally, the phonetic symbolization of Chinese characters is also mentioned.;Based on the important discussions, this dissertation presents a comprehensive model for Mandarin loanword adaptation: A Model of Mandarin Loanword Adaptation (MMLA). This model includes the functions of all the important factors in Mandarin loanword adaptation. Through applying it to Mandarin loanword variations, the creation of many loanword variations can be reasonably explained. |
