Adaptation of the English ER [schwa] to Czech
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2020 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Contributions to the 22nd Annual Conference of the Association of Slavists (Polyslaw) |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Keywords | loanword adaptation; phonology; Anglicism; syllabic trill |
| Description | The paper discusses whether the way the English sequence er realized as a schwa is phonologically adapted to Czech is a matter of chance, as it appears to be at first sight, or whether there is some regularity behind it. A database of 310 English loanwords evidences that the adaptation may result in a syllabic trill as well as a sequence of the vowel [e] plus a non-syllabic trill (a vocalized trill). A statistical analysis of the distribution of the two options shows several significant correlations with phonological and extra-phonological factors. First of all, the sequence is virtually always adapted as a vocalized trill after vowels, [j] or [l], which is in fact expected phonotactically. It is also nearly always adapted as a syllabic trill after syllables containing a non-short vowel. This result seems to be motivated by the preference for certain types of patterning of syllables within Czech words. The most salient extra-phonological factors influencing the adaption of the sequence are the word frequency and the morphological status of the sequence er in English. The adaptation is thus at least partly a non-random phenomenon, although its results cannot be predicted in a quite large body of words. |
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