Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

(underlying) long vowels 71 , and phrase-final open syllables; these are all positions in
which vowels would have characteristic additional phonetic duration.
Phonetic studies of final lengthening add empirical weight to this hypothesis. In
addition to the temporal augmentation of vowels in domain-final syllables, several
researchers have identified a process of (spatial) articulatory strengthening as well.
Edwards et al. (1991) in a study of the gestural implementation of final lengthening in
English concluded that while phrase-final stressed /a/ was longer and slower than its non-
final counterpart (indicating a local change in gestural stiffness), a phrase-final reduced
vowel [] was not only longer, but also enhanced by greater gestural displacement (in
their measure of jaw height).
Vayra and Fowler (1992) find a strikingly similar pattern in their investigation of
supralaryngeal articulatory declination in Tuscan Italian 72 . While for stressed vowels (/a/
and /i/) measures of F0 , amplitude and jaw opening decreased monotonically from
beginning to end in trisyllables uttered in isolation, for unstressed vowels (again /a/ and
/i/) the same declination was observed for F0 and amplitude, but measures of F1 and jaw
71 Long vowels created through compensatory lengthening still undergo raising where applicable (Hahn
1991: 56), highlighting the independence from actual phonetic duration of the categorical word-internal
raising process.
72 A non-metaphony dialect in which there can be occasional apocope of phrase-internal word-final vowels
following sonorants, but no such process phrase-finally. This is in contrast with certain southern dialects,
e.g. Pugliese, which reflect metaphony and in which all posttonic vowels are reduced to schwa and wordfinal
vowels are deleted phrase-finally. (Giannelli 1997: 298, Loporcaro 1997: 340-341). See below for
discussion of final vowel weakening processes.
153