Cantonese loanword types
Extract of a conversation I was having with someone on Cantonese loanword types:
Friend: Are english loans in cantonese commonly assimilated to cantonese phonology? To what extent?
Me:
I think there are 3 levels 1. non-lexicalized 2. semi-lexicalized 3. fully lexicalized
fully lexicalized are words that have dedicated hanzi, I'd say perhaps the first is like code-switching. The second type are words that have a standardized pronunciation that fits almost perfectly if not fully perfectly into Cantonese phonology, but without hanzi
1. ? [nothing came to mind then] 2. haai1 lai1 taa*2 (highlighter) 3. 的士 (taxi)
It's hard to place sometimes. For example the word pro6 (/pʰɹou˨˨/ ”professional”). Technically canto of course doesn't have /r/, so it's not easy to judge whether this is a case of code-switching or semi-lexicalized.
哇，你好pro呀！ "wow, you're very professional!"
It's been noted (Multiple scansions in loanword phonology, Silverman, 1992) that [the last syllable of] Cantonese loanwords have a tendency to receive the 變音 (tone 1 or 2). I think this can be a way to classify type 2 or 3. By this standard, pro6, which doesn't use tone 1 or 2, would fit into group 1, which also makes sense since /r/ isn't in native Canto phonology.
[...]
there is a structure: stressed syllables use tone 1 unstressed syllables use tone 4 epenthetic syllables use tone 6 final syllable uses 變音
or at least, this was what was documented in [Silverman’s paper], but I think these days tones 4 and 6 would be interchangeable [For the case of “pro”], it uses tone 6 for an unstressed syllable (and not tone 4).