Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

existence of these synchronically similar licensing asymmetries by simply identifying
more than one phonetic source for a given synchronic pattern (both durational reduction
of unstressed vowels and durational and articulatory enhancement of accented vowels 36
can result in differing sets of contrasts available in stressed and unstressed syllables).
Indeed, in many cases synchronic reduction patterns will not be phonetically
motivated even in diachrony, but rather, will result from the layering of several not-
necessarily-related sound changes, each phonetically motivated in its own right, but in
aggregate creating a pattern which is not wholly phonetically explicable. Such patterns
will never be found in gradient versions such as those discussed above for phonetically-
motivated UVR patterns, since they are not in fact the result of the phonologization of a
phonetically-conditioned gradient shift from one articulation to another. Such a case is
found in Seediq, an Austronesian language of Taiwan, belonging to the Atayalic family.
2.6.1. Vowel Reduction in Seediq
Holmer (1996) presents a description of the Paran dialect of Seediq (also called
Sedik in the literature - Asai 1953, Li 1977, Li 1980). Seediq is described as having five
underlying vowels /i, e, a, o, u/, all of which are contrastive in stressed syllables. In
36 See de Jong (1995) and Cho (2001: 77-80) for discussion of the nature of this enhancem
ent under accent.
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