ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to recognize the existence of loanwords in Chinese vocabulary. It discusses how to recognize Chinese loanwords using Ito and Mester’s core-periphery structure. The chapter present questions concerning semantic loans, Japanese graphic loans, and alphabetic loans and provide reasonable answers for these issues. It argues that alphabetic loans, which are composed of only Latin letters, should be treated as part of foreign words. Semantic loans and Japanese graphic loans should be treated as loanwords even though they seem to be very similar to the Chinese native vocabulary. They should be placed in the location close to the core of the Chinese lexical space. Semantic loans blur the line between native Chinese vocabulary and Chinese loanwords. The chapter discusses types of Chinese loanwords. There are four types of Chinese loanwords depending on the borrowing type: phonetic loans, semantic loans, graphic loans, and hybrids.
