Korean loanwood phonology: Perceptual assimilation and extraphonological factors

This study proceeds along three avenues of inquiry: (i) investigation of the phonetic adjustments that are made to three types of English consonants as they are borrowed into Korean (/s/ in codas, stops in initial s-clusters, and liquids), (ii) exploration of the implications of loanword phonology for the perceptual organization of recipient language sound systems, (iii) delimitation of the effects of extra-phonological factors on loanword adaptation patterns in Korean.;Depending on its phonetic properties, English /s/ in word codas is borrowed as one of two different phonemes in Korean, either 'lax' /s/ or 'tense' /ss/. The results of both production and perception experiments in this study show that Korean subjects perceive English /s/ according to subtle phonetic cues, particularly durational differences which are not contrastive in the source language but appear to be in the recipient language.;In the adaptation of English voiceless unaspirated stops in word-initial s-clusters, the results of a perception experiment show that Korean listeners categorize English voiceless unaspirated stops as Korean tense stops in the absence of corresponding English graphemes, whereas they select Korean aspirated stops when presented with their English spellings (p, t, c/k). This reveals a prominent bias in borrowing toward substitution by the phonetically closest sounds in the recipient language, albeit only when the role of source language orthography is suppressed.;Finally, the dissertation examines the adaptation of English liquid phonemes in Korean as either a singleton (/L/) or geminate (/LL/) liquid based on whether Korean listeners perceive the source sound as organized in the onset or the coda, irrespective of the place it holds in the syllable structure of the source language. Apparent exceptions are attributed to alternative source languages, to different routes through which foreign words are borrowed into Korean, and to other extraphonological considerations.;Overall, the current study confirms that it is indeed the phonological categories of the recipient language that play a determining role in interpreting foreign acoustic input. But extraphonological factors, such as borrower awareness of source language spelling conventions and their correspondences to recipient language phonemes, play a significant (and confounding) role as well.