Tonal Adaptation of Loanwords in Mandarin: Phonology and Beyond
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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2020 Tonal Adaptation of Loanwords in Mandarin: Phonology and Beyond Zhuting Chang The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3578 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] TONAL ADAPTATION OF LOANWORDS IN MANDARIN: PHONOLOGY AND BEYOND by ZHUTING CHANG A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2020 ©2020 Zhuting Chang All rights reserved ii Tonal Adaptation of Loanwords in Mandarin: Phonology and Beyond by Zhuting Chang This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Linguistics in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _____________________ _____________________________________________ Date Dianne Bradley Chair of Examining Committee ___________________ _____________________________________________ Date Juliette Blevins Acting Executive Officer Supervisory Committee Dianne Bradley Gita Martohardjono Eva Fernández Stuart Davis (external reader) THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Tonal Adaptation of Loanwords in Mandarin: Phonology and Beyond by Zhuting Chang Advisor: Dianne Bradley This study examines the tonal adaptation of English and Japanese loanwords in Mandarin, and considers data collected from different types of sources. The purpose overall is to identify the mechanisms underlying the adaptation processes by which tone is assigned, and to check if the same mechanisms are invoked regardless of donor languages and source types. Both corpus and experimental methods were utilized to survey a broad sampling of borrowings and a wide array of syllable types that target specific phonetic properties. To maximally rule out the effect of semantic tingeing, this study examined English place names that were extracted from a dictionary and from online travel blogs. And to explore how semantic association might interfere with the adaptation processes, this study also investigated a separate corpus of Japanese manga role names and brand names. Revisiting discussions in previous studies about how phonetic properties of the source form might affect tonal assignments in the adapted forms, this study also included an expanded reanalysis of adaptations elicited in an experimental setting. Observations made in the study suggest that the primary mechanisms behind tonal assignments for loanwords in Mandarin operate at a level beyond any usual phonological concerns: the adaptation processes are heavily reliant on factors that are inherent to Mandarin lexical distributions, such as tone probability and character frequency. Adapters apparently iv utilize their tacit knowledge about such distributional properties when assigning tones. Also crucial to the tonal assignment mechanism is the seeking of appropriate characters based on their meanings, either to avoid unintended readings of loanwords or to form desired interpretations. Such adaptation mechanisms are mainly attributable to the morpho-syllabic nature of the Chinese writing system, the language’s high productivity of compound words, and its high incidence of homophony. Also noted in the study is the influence of prescriptive conventions formulated for formally established loanwords. Research findings reported in this study highlight such non-phonological aspects of loanword adaptation, especially the role of the writing system, that have been underestimated to date in the field of loanword phonology and cross-linguistic studies of loanword typology. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following people, without whom I would not have been able to complete this research. My deepest appreciation goes to my committee, especially to my advisor Professor Dianne Bradley. Her insight and knowledge into the subject matter, expertise in quantitative analysis, and her meticulous pursuit of perfection in writing was vital in helping me form a comprehensive, objective and persuasive argument. I would also like to thank Professor Gita Martohardjono and Professor Eva Fernández for their patience with me, as well as their thoughtful comments and recommendations on this dissertation. I would particularly like to thank Professor Stuart Davis, my external reviewer, for introducing me into the field of loanword phonology, for his never-fading enthusiasm for the project, and for his dedicated support and guidance throughout the research. I am also grateful to my colleagues at Hunter College, the City University of New Work, especially to Professor Der-lin Chao, who entrusted me with important tasks for her strategic projects on teaching Chinese and training Chinese teachers, while allowing me the space to develop my own research. Particularly helpful to me during the last three years of my research were my colleagues at the United Nations, who continuously provided encouragement and were always willing to assist in any way they could. And my biggest thanks to my family for all the support they have shown me through this research. I simply could not have carried out these studies without them. And to my parents, who set me off on the road to academic excellence a long time ago. To conclude, I cannot forget to thank my friends who stayed positive with me and made me feel confident in my abilities. vi CONTENTS List of tables: ................................................................................................................................... x List of figures: ................................................................................................................................ xi Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background ........................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Research questions and approach .......................................................................................... 2 1.3 Basic properties of the recipient language ............................................................................ 5 1.3.1 Segmental inventories and syllable structure ................................................................. 5 1.3.2 Tone inventory ................................................................................................................ 7 1.3.3 Writing system ................................................................................................................ 9 1.4 Outline of the study ............................................................................................................. 10 Chapter 2: General Characteristics of Mandarin Loanword Adaptation ...................................... 12 2.1 Segmental adaptation .......................................................................................................... 12 2.1.1 Perceptual similarity and consonantal adaptation ........................................................ 12 2.1.1.1 Source types and adaptation strategies .................................................................. 13 2.1.1.2 Deviant adaptation and semantic association ........................................................ 17 2.1.1.3 Experiments and the role of frequency .................................................................. 26 2.1.2 Featural mapping and vowel adaptations ..................................................................... 31 2.2 Suprasegmental adaptation .................................................................................................. 33 2.2.1 The role of stress, onset and coda ................................................................................. 33 2.2.1.1 Stress-to-tone and depressor consonants ............................................................... 33 2.2.1.2 Contour-to-tone and the role of coda ..................................................................... 36 2.2.2 Source type and the role of frequency .......................................................................... 37 2.3 Concluding remarks ............................................................................................................ 40 Chapter 3: Approaches to Loanword Phonology .......................................................................... 42 3.1 The phonology approach ..................................................................................................... 43 3.2 The phonetic/perception approach ...................................................................................... 46 3.3 The phonology-perception approach ................................................................................... 48 3.4 Non-phonological perspective ............................................................................................. 49 Chapter 4: Experimentally Elicited Adaptation ............................................................................ 52 vii 4.1 Experimental design ...........................................................................................................