The adaptation of the English voiceless affricate in 1930s Korean

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 183 1046 University of Toronto 8 2 1284 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false In this paper, we examine the adaptation of English / t ? / in Korean loanwords in the 1930s. The overall adaptation pattern found in the 1930s data is similar to the pattern found in Contemporary Korean; the affricate was adapted as /c h / and an epenthetic vowel (/i/) was inserted when the affricate occurred in non-prevocalic position in the English input. Also, similar to Contemporary Korean, a palatal glide was often inserted in the transcription even though the available evidence suggests that the glide d id not surface in the pronunciation. We argue that the distribution of in the transcription is not arbitrary ; rather, it follows the co? occurrence restrictions of in the native words and the transcription is a reflection of a level of phonological representation that is somewhat more abstract than the surface pronunciation. The only crucial difference found in the data between 1930s and contemporary Korean was that was frequently inserted in the 1930s data, due to the rounding gesture of the affricate in English , but the usage of in transcription or pronunciation is extremely rare in contemporary Korean. This indicates that loanword adaptation was more sensitive to phonetic details in the 1930s than in contemporary Korean.