Segmental Adaptation of French Loans in the Vietnamese Language: The Use of Optimality-Theory

Abstract

The area of Vietnamese French loanword phonology has received little attention in the field of research. Therefore, this paper aimed at examining the Vietnamese loanword phonology with a special emphasis on the segmental adaptation of French loans into the Vietnamese language. Specifically, using the Optimality-Theoretic framework, the study showed a comprehensive account of consonant and vowel changes when the Vietnamese consonants and vowels were adapted. The repair strategies used to accommodate the loans vary from deletion to assimilation/substitution. It revealed that the initial positions of the adapted Vietnamese consonants do not change much. However, the final positions of the adapted Vietnamese consonants appear to change significantly. In addition, it was found that the Ident-Voice stands at the first place of the constraint hierarchy for the Vietnamese loan phonology. Ident-Place and Ident- Manner, respectively, stand after it. Finally, French vowel loanwords were seen to have three constraints: no nasal vowels, no front rounded vowels, and no vowel schwa spoken in Vietnamese.