Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

increased duration. In Uyghur, raising applies only to non-initial low vowels in
unstressed syllables. This may seem odd at first, particularly since Uyghur, like most
Turkic languages, has fixed final (not initial) stress. It makes more sense in light of
phonetic facts documented in other Turkic languages: Turkic final stress is not strongly
correlated with increased vowel duration (see Konrot 1981 for experimental evidence
from Turkish). 69 In Turkish (Barnes 2001a, and Chapter 4 below) and the closely-related
Turkmen (Mollaev 1980), it has been shown that vowels in word-initial syllables,
regardless of the placement of stress, are realized with longer phonetic durations than the
vowels of comparable word-internal syllables. Additionally, in Anatolian Turkish,
contrary to near-universal expectations, all things being equal vowels in closed syllables
are longer than vowels in comparable open syllables (Lahiri and Hankamer 1988,
Jannedy 1995, Kopkallı-Yavuz 2000, Barnes 2001b). The shorter duration characteristic
of open syllables in Turkish has the result of conditioning frequent reduction of /a/ to []
in ordinary speech. If these two durational regularities are found also in Uyghur 70 , then
raising can be seen to fail specifically in initial syllables, closed syllables, syllables with
69 Stress in Uyghur is generally final in native vocabulary, and is described by Hahn as relying primarily on
a pitch distinction, with durational differences between stressed and unstressed syllables being “less
pronounced ... than in most European languages” (Hahn 1991: 27).
70 Or at least were found at the time of the development of the raising process.
152