Epenthesis in Pakistani Urduized English: Optimality Analysis

Abstract

The current research paper describes the process of epenthesis in Pakistani Urduized English. The main purpose of the study is to discuss the English borrowed words and their usage in the spoken Urdu version in Pakistan within the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky, 1993). The study discusses the processes of phoneme alteration in Urduaized English and how the Urdu speakers substitute and break the consonant cluster in communication. The issues of phoneme deletion, phoneme alternation, voicing, and devoicing can be resolved by applying Optimality Theory and ranking of constraints. In the paper, we argue that adoption of loan words in Urduaized English leads to certain phonological processes like epenthesis, which can be described within OT. Moreover, the study discusses the reasons for phonological addition or deletion within the borrowed lexical item. The study finds in Pakistani English, epenthesis is widely used processes on certain CC clusters at onset and coda positions of the syllables. In addition, the epenthesis process is conditioned to certain markedness constraints in Pakistani English. The study recommends a spectrographic analysis to find the spectrographic features on epenthesis.