Loan words and abstract phonotactic constraints

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Abstract
In this paper we will discuss several cases of the phonology of loan words. We will show that loan words are adapted phonologically to meet certain constraints on possible words or morphemes imposed on them by the borrowing language. Most significantly, such constraints are defined on the level of lexical representation. To our knowledge so-called “surface phonetic constraints” (henceforth SPC’s) play no role in the phonology of loan words, nor indeed in any other part of phonology. Our examples show that deep phonotactic constraints, constraints not necessarily reflected on the surface, are the drums to which loan words must march. This is not to say that all aspects of loan word phonological behaviour are now understood. Many mysterious facts still remain unexplained. We do claim that substantial aspects of this phenomenon may be understood by assuming that the systematic phonemic level of generative phonology is the level on which the constraints controlling loan word phonological behaviour are defined.

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