v

PHONOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF ARABIC LOANWORDS IN MALAY:

AN OPTIMALITY THEORITIC ANALYSIS

ABSTRACT

The study investigates and describes the phonological behaviors of Arabic loanwords in
Malay, particularly the phenomena that involve phonological changes. The data used in
this study are secondary in nature as they were collected from a computerized corpus of
DBP-UKM consisting of five million words. Generated using Oxford WordSmith Tools,
the data were later clustered according to the phonological behaviors. The behaviors were
analyzed through an approach which is based on the constraints advocated in the
framework of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993). The Arabic loanwords
were found to undergo phonological changes so as to submit to the Malay phonological
system especially those related to the syllable structure constraints. The Malay language
denies the insertion of consonant cluster regardless of the positions – onset or coda,
geminate consonant, long vowels and monosyllabic word. In order to ensure the
constraints are not violated, phonological changes have to be performed including vowel
harmony, degemination, vowel shortening, and deletion of syllable. Taking the analysis
of Optimality Theory into account, these changes were made to submit to the dominant
constraints in the Malay grammar, for instance, ALIGN RIGHT, *COMPLEX, *LS and
INTEGRITY. The constraints that can be violated consist of KtPr = KD-σ, MAX-IO,
DEP-IO, *SPREAD and MAX-µ. All the phonological behaviors of Arabic loanwords are
handled suffieciently by using a similar set of hierarchical constraints in the Malay
grammar.