Phonological Adaptation of Arabic Loanwords in Tagalog: An Optimality Theory Analysis

The adaptation of Arabic words in Tagalog was a dormant issue in Tagalog lexicography until Jean-Paul G. Potet documented these borrowings twelve years ago. In this paper, we give an account of the relation between the Arabic and Tagalog sound systems. There are major differences and minor similarities between the two languages. Of Arabic's 29 consonants, 15 lack direct counterparts in Tagalog's 16-consonant inventory which requires categorical phonemic substitutions instead of gradient phonetic adaptations. Crucially, the absence of forms relying on acoustic and perceptual adjustment in the data confirms these changes occur strictly at the phonemic level. We perform some phonological analysis in order to account for the constraints Tagalog has applied to some of the Arabic loanwords within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT). Ten constraints are ranked selectively as indicators of phonological influence on the process of adaptation. These constraints focus mainly on superheavy syllables by examining both medial and final positions of vowels and consonants in the data. While Tagalog has preserved some consonant clusters of Arabic, other than geminates, the data show that no complex vowels are allowed in ultima syllables. The findings reveal Tagalog's strict adherence to its native phonotactics, particularly in maintaining CV(C) syllable structure and prohibiting marked Arabic features. This study contributes to our understanding of loanword phonology in Austronesian languages by demonstrating how categorical substitution patterns can emerge even between phonologically divergent languages.