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A Comparative Study of Epenthetic Vowel Quality between Budai Rukai, Selayarese, and Sranan
Chong-yu Liu
National Tsing Hua University
Echo epenthesis, where an epenthetic element is identical to a neighboring, can be
observed in a number of languages such as Japanese: [bahha] < /Bach/; Kolami: [erekt] <
/erk+t/. This paper provides a typological survey of echo epenthesis in loanword adaptation
between Budai Rukai, Selayarese, and Sranan and particularly focus on the different
strategies when an epenthetic element can not be identical to a neighboring vowel /a/.
Comparing that an epenthetic element can be identical to a neighboring vowel /a/
(Selayarese), the different strategies in the contrary situation: (i) feature spreading from the
preceding consonant (Sranan); (ii) default vowel insertion (Budai Rukai) are displayed and
analyzed in this paper. In addition, this survey complements the properties which are
mentioned by Kawahara (2007)s typological survey of echo epenthesis.
From the evidence of stress pattern and suffixed form in loanwords of Selayarese, an
Austronesian language in Indonesia, which is from Bahasa Indonesia (Marianne and Hasan
1986, Ellen 2000), the pattern of echo epenthesis is that an epenthetic vowel can be identical
to all kinds of the neighboring vowel when the final coda consonant are /l, r, s/, as shown in
(1). However, Budai Rukai, an Austronesian language in Taiwan (Li 1973, Zeitoun 2000,
Chen 2006), has a different type of echo epenthesis in (2). The specific echo epenthesis
type of Budai Rukai is that the epenthetic vowel is // when /a/ is preceding vowel, as shown
in (2b). Another specific type of Sranan (Uffman 2006), a Creole language in northern
South America, is that when /a/ is preceding vowel, the epenthetic vowel is /u/ after labial
consonants, is /i/ after coronal consonants, and is /a/ or /i/ after dorsal consonants. The
patterns of echo epenthesis in these languages need to be explained.
In my OT analysis, constraints referring to the representation of geometric structure
(Uffman 2005) are employed to account for these echo epenthesis patterns in Selayarese,
Budai Rukai, and Sranan. First of all, the undominated constraint that prohibits the specific
consonants to appear in coda condition (CODACOND) forces the vowel epenthesis, violating
the lower ranked constraint DEP(F). Then the constraint ranking of anti-insertion place
feature constraint (DEP(PLACE)-IO), request of no multiple linkage (*MULTIPLE), no place
feature spreading from consonants to vowels (*LINK (C, V)), and segments are not skipped in
multiple associations (*SKIP) can predict the echo epenthesis patterns in these three languages.
However, because the constraint that /a/ can not associate multiple feature (*MULTIPLE
(pharngeal)) is undominated in Budai Rukai and Sranan, the different strategies of echo
epenthesis occur when an epenthetic vowel can not be identical to a neighboring vowel /a/.
To sum up, this paper investigates the three different types of echo epenthesis in
loanword adaptation of Budai Rukai, Selayarese, and Sranan. The survey suggests that
phonological process of echo epenthesis in loanword adaptation is not only influenced
considerately by perceptual factors, but also internal phonological grammar.
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Data:
(1) Echo epenthesis of Selayarese
a. /botol/ [btolo] bottle d. /arus/ [rusu] current
b. /snter/ [sntere] flashlight e. /kkir/ [kkiri] metal file
c. /kipas/ [kpasa] fan

(2) Echo epenthesis of Budai Rukai
a. /udon/ [uduu] noodle b. /soroban/ [suruba] abacus
c. /siken/ [sikii] test d. /lb/ [lb] to smell

(3) Echo epenthesis of Sranan
a. /big/ [bigi] big b. /luk/ [luku] look
c. /tap/ [tapu] top d. /hat/ [hati] hot
e. /wk/ [waka] walk f. /tk/ [taki] talk

Selected Reference
Chen, Chun-Mei. 2006. A comparative Study on Formosan Phonology: Paiwan and Budai
Rukai. Texas, Ph.D. dissertation: The university of Texas at Austin. Li, Paul Jen-Kuei.
1975. Rukai Texts. Taipei: Institute of History and Philology Special Publications No. 64-2.
Taipei: Academia Sinica. Li, Paul Jen-Kuei. 1977. The Internal Relationships of Rukai.
Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, 48: 1-92. Kawahara,
Shigeto. 2007. Copying and spreading in phonological theory: Evidence from echo
epenthesis. UMOP 32: Papers in Optimality Theory III, Eds. Leah Bateman, Michael
O'Keefe, Ehren Reilly and Adam Werle, GLSA, Amherst, MA: 111-144. Kitto, Catherine
& Paul de Lacy. (1999) Correspondence and epenthetic quality. Proceedings of AFLA 4.
181-200. Zeitoun, Elizabeth. 2000. A Reference Grammar of Rukai: Series on Formosan
Languages 8, Taipei: Yuanliu Publisher Co. (In Chinese). Mithun, Marianne and Hasan
Basri. (1986) The phonology of Selayarese. Oceanic Linguistics XXV: 210-154. Broselow,
Ellen. (2000) Stress, epenthesis, and segment transformation in Selayarese loans.
Proceedings of the 25th Annual Conference of the Berkeley Linguisitics Society, UC Berkeley.
Uffmann, Christian. (2005) Optimal Geometries, The internal structure of phonological
segments. Berlin: Moutonde Gruyter. Uffmann, Christian. (2006) Epenthetic vowel
quality in loanwords: Empirical and formal issues. Lingua 116: 1079-1111.