Issues in loanword adaptation: A case study from Thai

In this paper we review the results of a study of an 800-word corpus of loanwords from English into Thai and consider their relevance for models of loanword adaptation. The discussion focuses on the context-free adaptation of consonants; the correspondences between the voiceless aspirated, voiceless unaspirated, and voiced stops of the two languages; adaptations to accommodate Thai's CRVC syllable template; and the selection of a tone for the loanword.