[Lingtyp] Loanwords tend to have more uncommon phonemes?

[Kristine Hildebrandt]

Greetings,

Hmmm...exotic and rare/uncommon? I myself am not sure how to really
evaluate that (unless you are really focusing on sounds like the labial
flap or epiglottals, for example). But in terms of appearance/incorporation
of sounds that are not typically part of the "profile" of a borrowing
language and/or its relatives, I think that to some extent, it depends on
factors like age of the loanword (how long it's been integrated into the
lexicon of the "borrowing" community), and also similarities and
differences between "borrowing" and "lending" phonologies, and probably
other equally important factors like frequency of usage. There are some
edited volumes out there where this is discussed--it may not be the focus
of individual chapters, but it can be found within the sketches themselves.
Here are two of several (and I would be keen to see publications or reports
that really do look at the idea of "rare" sounds in loans or contact
situations, so thanks in advance):

*Loanwords in the World's Languages*
<http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/41172>. (editors Martin Haspelmath &
Uri Tadmoor) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 2009.
*Grammatical Borrowing in Cross-Linguistic Perspective
<https://www.degruyter.com/view/product/34187>.* (editors Yaron Matras &
Jeanette Sakel) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 2007.

On Fri, Jan 31, 2020 at 8:17 AM Joo, Ian <joo at shh.mpg.de> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I would like to know if there are any sources that demonstrate that
> loanwords tend to have a larger number of rare, uncommon sounds as opposed
> to native words.
> My intuition tells me that this is true, but I’ve yet to find any source
> that makes a general typological claim on this.
> I would greatly appreciate your help.
>
> From Jena,
> Ian
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>


-- 
Orche
('Thanks' in Manange)

*Kristine A. Hildebrandt*
*Professor, Department of English Language & Literature
<http://www.siue.edu/artsandsciences/english/>*
*President, Endangered Language Fund
<http://www.endangeredlanguagefund.org/>*

*Executive Committee Member, Association for Linguistic Typology
<http://www.linguistic-typology.org/>*
*Editor, Himalayan Linguistics
<http://escholarship.org/uc/himalayanlinguistics>*

*Southern Illinois University Edwardsville*


*Box 1431Edwardsville, IL 62026 U.S.A.618-650-3991 (department voicemail)*


*khildeb at siue.edu <khildeb at siue.edu>http://www.siue.edu/~khildeb
<http://www.siue.edu/~khildeb>*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20200131/478e1842/attachment.htm>