French loanwords in Vietnamese: the role of input language phonotactics and contrast in loanword adaptation

Abstract

This study examines the adaptation of French vowels in Vietnamese focusing on adaptation patterns that seem to defy a straightforward analysis based on native phonotactic restrictions or comparison of phonetic input-output similarity. A proper analysis requires reference to knowledge of the input language phonology. In the first case study, we observe that Vietnamese adapters extend the French phonotactic tendencies, i.e., Loi de Position, to loan adaptation productively. Such “intrusion” of L2 phonology knowledge may arise when phonetics underdetermines the adaptation and the adapters look to their knowledge of L2 phonology to arrive at adaptation. It is also notable that the L2 knowledge employed in adaptation is not native-like as the adaptation is not always isomorphic to the French input. In the second case study, the contrast of L2 phonology (/ʁ/ vs. /k/) is neutralized due to an L1 phonological restriction (i.e., no /ʁ/ in Vietnamese coda) but the Vietnamese adaptation systematically retains the contrast in the quality and length difference in the preceding vowel. There is plausible phonetic motivation for this adaptation pattern, but phonetically faithful mapping underdetermines the attested adaptation pattern, and reference to knowledge of L2 phonological contrasts is necessary. These findings illustrate the complexity of the loanword adaptation process, where a variety of different factors including L1 phonological restrictions, phonetic similarity, and L2 phonological knowledge, interact to affect adaptation.

The Adaptation of French Consonant Clusters in Vietnamese Phonology: An OT Account

“…Huynh (2010) provides some statistics of French loanwords used among different Vietnamese age groups in recent years. A recent paper of Kang, Pham & Storme (2014) examines French loanwords in Vietnamese with the focus on adaptation of vowels into the native language. The paper provides two case studies of French vowel integration into Vietnamese.…”

“…In other words, it is obvious that most of previous studies in Vietnamese loanwords are descriptive in nature and only list the changes that the sound segments or syllables undergo. The significant studies on loanwords in Vietnamese (Barker 1969, Huynh 2010, Kang, Pham & Storme 2014 have proposed rules of deletion/epenthesis or feature change to account for their adaptation into Vietnamese. For example, inserting the vowel /i/ to break up the onset cluster /sl/ in the word /slip/ > [silip] while deleting a consonant in a coda cluster as in /gɒlf/ which becomes [ɣon].…”

Segmental Adaptation of French Loans in the Vietnamese Language: The Use of Optimality-Theory

“…The background information on phonology of French is based on Walker (2001), Féry (2003) and Kang et al (2014). The variety of French discussed in our study is European French.…”

“…In our study, we followTranel (1987),Kang et al (2014) by treating the segment /ʁ/ as a fricative, and not as an approximant.…”