An Optimality-Theoretic Account of English Loanwords in Hawaiian

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide an Optimality-Theoretic (henceforth OT) account of the linguistic phenomenon of borrowing. In particular, it examines English loanwords in Hawaiian from a constraint-based analysis as opposed to a rule-based analysis. Data necessary for this study consisted of some randomly selected Hawaiian words. These loanwords were carefully examined as to realize their phonological changes and how they can be accounted for from an OT standpoint. Several phonological changes, mainly those of the syllable structure of Hawaiian, were examined along with accompanying phonological processes (e.g., epenthesis, degemination, etc.) where applicable. The proposed ranking hierarchy that, the argument goes, could account for all English loanwords in Hawaiian is like this: ∑{NO CODA >> MAX-IO >> *CC >> DEP-IO}, a state of affairs which confirmed our intuition that the syllable structure of the borrowing language (Hawaiian) prevails over the syllable structure of the donor language (English). In order to establish the ranking argument, comparative tableaux are used. Violations tableaux are also used to demonstrate how the winning configuration beats competitive candidate forms.