Phonotactic rules with foreign words

Every language has its own set of conditions on consonant sequencing. When a
word is borrowed into one language from another, the borrowed word is often
reformed to conform to the sequencing conditions in the borrowing language
(Akmajian, 2001, 102).

As for example when English words are borrowed into the Hawaiian Language the
first thing is happening is that the consonants and vowels in Hawaiian that are
closest to the English counterparts are used. The second thing is that the English
words are reformed according to the Hawaiian phonotactic constraints to be
acceptable.

This is the case when the English greeting ‘Merry Christmas’ sounds very different
when pronounced by a native speaker of Hawaiian. which results from the fact that
Hawaiian lacks [r] and [s], for which it substitutes its nearest equivalents [l] and
[k], respectively; it has no consonant sequences such as [kr] and [sm], for which it
substitutes [kal] and [kim], and it has no word-final [s], for which it substitutes [ki]
(Hudson, 2000: 247).

It is necessary to know that Hawaiian has only eight consonants (p, m, n, l, k, h, w,

ᴣ) and five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and that English has 24 consonants and 15 vowels.
So Hawaiian does not have enough consonants and vowels to represent all English
consonants and vowels.

The matter here is that phonotactics of Hawaiian is responsible for this adjustment,
since phonotactics constraints of Hawaiian does not permit consonant clusters or
syllable-final obstruents. ‘Meli Kalikamaka’ is thus the Hawaiian version of
‘Merry Christmas’ (Akmajian, 2001, 103). So, sequential constraints on syllables
(along with the phonological rules) force borrowed words to conform to the
principles of that language.

The same thing is applied whenever someone invents a new word as for example
as a brand name, this word must conform to the syllable (and word formation)
rules of English. The syllable-initial sequence in a word such as ‘*ftic’ is not
possible in English, although it is possible in other language. English speakers
recognize immediately whether or not a word conforms to the English rules of
syllable well-formedness depending on their strong intuitions

- Sometimes we have to avoid applying phonotactic rules on certain foreign words

when they are borrowed from other languages.

Non-nativised foreign words with sounds sequences that are not permitted in
English may be allowed in, as a special case. Presumably such words are put in a
special sector reserved for them (Katamba, 1993: 84).

We need to make some allowance for example for foreign place names like ‘tblisi’
or foreign personal names like ‘zgusta’ which begin with the consonant clusters
[tbl] and [zg] which are strange in English. Thus, foreign words entering the
language may be allowed to by-pass the phonotactic filter. In that case they keep
their foreign pronunciation unchanged e.g. ‘tsunami’.

But in general and more often, such words probably tend to be significantly
modified so that they fit in the general phonotactic pattern of the language. So, a
schwa may be inserted between the first two consonants in names like ‘zgusta’ and
‘tblisi’ to produce [zəgʊstə] and [təblisi] respectively (Katamba, 1993: 84).