Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

Resistance: In final open syllables 59 , /a/, /o/, /e/ -> / [a] , as in first pretonic syllables.
Conditions: Resistance does not reverse categorical neutralizations, only realization
of height of resulting low vowel. Not clear from this source whether resistance occurs
in all word-final syllables or only in phrase-final position 60 .
c. Ukrainian dialects (Slavic) (Shevelov 1979: 218-240)
Maximal inventory: [i, , , a, , u]
Reduction processes: //, /e/ -> []
(/u/, /o/ -> [u])
The dialect geography of vowel reduction patterns in Ukrainian is complex, and
cannot be treated at length here. The processes most commonly involved are the
raising of /e/ and /o/ toward // and /u/ to one extent or another and in various
combinations. The pattern in which the distinction between /e/ and // is categorically
neutralized in unstressed syllables is the most common 61 , being characteristic of all
Ukrainian dialects save the eastern and central Polissian and the Lemkian (northern
periphery adj. to Belorussian and far western periphery in Slovakia respectively).
Standard Ukrainian has only this reduction (Shevelov 1979, Pugh and Press 1999).
Disregarding here less robust instantiations of the change, across-the-board
neutralization of /o/ and /u/ is much less general, obtaining primarily in a North-South
strip from Bukovyna to Pidljasia (on the western periphery, but excluding some far
western dialects (Shevelov 1979: 519).
Resistance: In most dialects reduction does not apply to word-final vowels (sources
make no mention of phrase vs. word distinction. In the dialects of the Berestja region
(northwestern), by contrast, reduction is apparently resisted in word-final open and
closed syllables.
Conditions: Shevelov describes reduction as categorical in the dialects where it
occurs regularly. Other sources speak of a gradient-sounding process, e.g. the
neutralizing vowels having only a “tendency to approximate one another” (Pugh and
Press 1999), or of reduction being optional (Janiak 1995).
59 The term used appears to be the Polish translation of Auslaut.
61 Depending on the dialect, or even the individual speaker in some areas, both vowels are realized as [e], as
[], or as something varying between the two, in some dialects assimilating to some degree to the height of
the stressed vowel (Shevelov 1979: 520).
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