Voiceless Stops

At the first glance over voiceless stops, it is confusing whether Japanese voiceless stops [, , ] would undergo transformations when they are borrowed into S-Hakka in which there are two sets of voiceless stops, unaspirated [, , ] and aspirated [, , ]. It is likely that the transformation would not happen because in loanword phonology it is said that sounds existing in both LS and LT undergo no adapted process. That means it can be predicted that Japanese [, , ] would not go through any transformations when they enter S-Hakka.

Nevertheless, the prediction turns out to be wrong. What the truth is the transformation takes place at certain phonetic contexts. Statistics and some examples are provided in (74) and (75).

(74) Statistics for the adaptations of voiceless stops Japanese

sources

S-Hakka

Correspondents Word-initial onset Word-middle onset

Number Total Percentage Number Total Percentage

Two things can be observed through (74). First, with respect to the LS voiceless stops, they will all transform to their aspirated counterparts, if they occupy the word-initial position. Second, if the LS voiceless stops are at the word-middle onset position, each of them will have two correspondents that account for different percentages.

13 The data are [] → [] ‘concrete’ and [] → [] ‘karat.’

14 The onset [] becomes coda [] of the preceding syllable and the vowel following the original onset [] is deleted. Data are [] → [] ‘boxing’; [] → [] ‘restaurant’; []

→ [] ‘post office’ and [] → [] ‘toast.’

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(75) Examples for the adaptations of voiceless stops Japanese

j   a kind of Japanese traditional clothes

k   airplane

l   Sake (a kind of Japanese traditional wine)

Speaking of Japanese word-initial voiceless stops, their acoustic property has to be taken into consideration. Voice onset time (VOT) of Japanese word-initial voiceless stops are controversial. Lisker & Acramson (1964) demonstrate a cross-linguistic research and categorize stop sounds into three types based on VOT. Their findings are shown in (76). VOT ranging from zero to twenty-five milliseconds is the quality of voiceless unaspirated stops, ranging from sixty to one hundred milliseconds is the quality of voiceless aspirated stops, and ranging from zero to minus twenty-five is the quality of voiced stops.

(76) VOT values of stop sounds (Lisker & Acramson 1964)

Stops Voiceless unaspirated Voiceless aspirated Voiced

VOT values 0~25 60~100 -25~0

Many studies (Han 1992, 1994, Homma 1981, Riney, Takagi, Ota & Uchida 2007) all report that Japanese word-initial voiceless stops usually are “more aspirated.” The VOT values of Japanese and S-Hakka word-initial voiceless stops are provided in (77). VOT values of Japanese word-initial voiceless stops are intermediate between the criteria of unaspiration and aspiration set up by Lisker & Acramson. Therefore, the thesis hypothesizes that Japanese

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initial voiceless stops are [] owing to their more aspirated property. Based on the hypothesis, why Japanese word-initial voiceless stops all transform to S-Hakka [] but not [] can be accounted for. Note that Japanese word-initial stop in the form of []

are hypothesized by the present work, and they become [] when entering S-Hakka, so no OT tableau is provided because no segmental change occurs.

(77) VOT values of Japanese and S-Hakka voiceless stops at the word-initial onset position Word-initial onsets word-middle onset position has two correspondents in the LT, aspirated and unaspirated, and the correspondents account for different frequencies of occurrence. Nevertheless, by observing (74) more carefully, it can be found that the transformations do not show a consistency in percentage terms. Regarding the majority, [] and [] mostly are still [] and [], while []

largely becomes [].VOT values of Japanese voiceless stops at the word-middle onset position, as shown in (78), are unanimously grouped into the unaspirated category according to the criteria set up by Lisker & Acramson (1964). For the segments in question, optimality-theoretic analyses are provided in (79).

(78) VOT values of Japanese and S-Hakka voiceless stops at the word-middle onset position Word-middle onsets

[] [] []

Japanese (Homma 1981) 7 16 24

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As shown in (79), IDENT-IO[SG] is below the cut-off so two possible outputs for each input are correctly predicted. However, which output is more well-formed is hard to tell. The difficulty lies in the fact that, in terms of percentage, voiceless stops as word-middle onsets are unable to show a similar pattern of transforming when they are borrowed into the LT. In comparison of results in percentage terms in table (74) with those in optimality-theoretic analyses in tableau (79), the hierarchy of output well-formedness is correctly predicted in (79i) and (79ii) where candidate (a) is more well-formed than candidate (b) is; however, the outcome in (79iii) is different from what has been presented in (74). Based on the statistical information provided in (74), [] is the most well-formed output and the second ideal output is []. On the contrary, based on (79iii), the most ideal output is [] and [] is chosen as the second one.

Because the frequency of occurrence differs from statistics in (74) to ROE prediction in (79iii), bombs “” are assigned. This question about the well-formed hierarchy of possible outputs may be dealt with by more data that can be collected. The present study leaves this question for further study and provides a very similar phenomenon found in the study of Japanese loanwords in Taiwanese (Nien 2009) in the next paragraph as a reference.

(79) Variations for the voiceless stops at the word-middle onset position

Taiwanese, like S-Hakka, has two sets of stop sounds in its phonetic inventory. One set of

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it is [, , ] and the other one is [, , ]. When Japanese loanwords enter Taiwanese, concerned with voiceless stops and their distributions, statistics are given in (80).

(80) Statistics for the adaptations of voiceless stops from Japanese to Taiwanese (Nien 2009:45) Japanese

sources

Taiwanese

Correspondents Word-initial onset Word-middle onset

Number Total Percentage Number Total Percentage contrast, Japanese word-initial voiceless stops all transform to their aspirated counterparts when they are borrowed into S-Hakka. On the other hand, for word-middle voiceless stops as onsets, the conditions for alveolar and velar stops are like those found in S-Hakka where []

largely is still [] and [] mainly becomes []. As for word-middle onset [], when it enters Taiwanese, it largely transforms to [], which is different from what has be found in S-Hakka.

However, please note that the percentages for [] and [] at the word-middle onset are quite even in Taiwanese.

Summing up results of the discussion so far, the present study finds the adaptations of voiceless stops have to take the phonetic contexts into consideration. At the word-initial onset position, Japanese voiceless stops which are hypothesized as [, , ] based on their “more aspirated property” transform to S-Hakka [, , ]. On the other hand, at the word-middle onset position, each LS voiceless unaspirated stop has two possible outputs, aspirated and unaspirated, in the LT; however, the transformations do not show a consistent pattern. Both []

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and [] largely remain unchanged whereas [] tends to change into []. The result about voiceless stops at word-middle onset position is not easy to explain and thus more data and researches are required.