| Abstract: | A recent model of loanword phonology (Peperkamp & Dupoux 2003, Peperkamp to appear) proposes that loanword adaptation - phonological adjustment that makes a loan conform to the phonology of the borrowing language - is driven directly by speech perception, not by an unfaithful input-output mapping in the phonological grammar. This paper presents evidence from English-to-Japanese loan doublets (loanwords with two different phonological outcomes in Japanese), showing that the perception-only model of loanword adaptation is too restrictive. While perceptual factors are important, the phonological grammar must play a role in loanword adaptation as well. A new phonological approach to loan adaptation, based on output-output faithfulness (Benua 1997), is outlined that incorporates the importance of perceptual similarity in loan adaptation but maintains the fundamental role of the phonological grammar in determining whether and how loans are adapted. |
