Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

involved, but in no way makes the pattern of neutralization any less viable from the point
of view of synchronic implementation in the phonology. This is to be expected under the
approach I advance in this study, according to which the phonetics-phonology interface
literally is phonologization, such that the former influences the latter only through this
medium.
1.1. Phonetics and phonology in recent approaches to positional neutralization
Recent debate concerning the appropriate treatment of positional neutralization in
phonological theory (e.g. Alderete 1995, Beckman 1998, Bosch 1991, Casali 1997,
Crosswhite 2001, Dyck 1995, Flemming passim, Harris 1998, Hyman 1998, Kirchner
1998, Lavoie 2001, Lombardi 1991, Majors 1998, Steriade 1994, 1997, 2001, Smith
2000, 2002, Walker 2001, Zhang 2001, Zoll 1998, inter alia) has been centered around
the issue of the place of phonetic information in the grammar responsible for generating
attested patterns of neutralization. A felicitous analysis of positional neutralization
phenomena has become a primary desideratum for any potential model of the phonetics-
phonology interface. A well-known example of positional neutralization clarifying the
centrality of this issue to the development of our understanding of the relationship
between phonetics and phonology is the following from Steriade (1997): In a great many
languages, laryngeal features for consonants are subject to general patterns of positional
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