Vowel Epenthesis in Japanese Loanword Adaptation
Vowel Epenthesis in Japanese Loanword Adaptation

Summary/Abstract: It is a generally accepted idea that vowel epenthesis is the main strategy used to repair illicit vowels in Japanese loanword adaptation; however, little attention has been paid to the quality of epenthetic vowels and the processes triggering their occurrence. This paper aims at providing an optimal-theoretic account of the processes that cause each of the five Japanese vowels to surface as epenthetic vowels. All three processes of vowel epenthesis – default vowel epenthesis, consonant place assimilation and vowel harmony – are defined in terms of feature insertion or feature spreading (Uffmann 2006, 2007). The paper provides as well a quantitative analysis regarding the frequency of epenthetic vowels and epenthesis strategies.

• Details
• Contents