Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

application (in whatever form) is not a shortcoming. Rather, it is a virtue, in that
synchronically those exceptions really are arbitrary. The relevant structures are
exceptional regardless of their precise phonetic realizations.
It should be noted at this point that, as with vowel reduction, phonologization of
the process here refers only to the introduction of a new, independent target realization
for the vowel in the position of reduction. Prior to phonologization, the vowel would have
shared the same target window as its unreduced counterpart, with the caveat that that
window would be modeled as sufficiently wide to allow substantial deviation under the
influence of durational pressures (in Keating 1996’s terms, meaning essentially that the
need to comply with the dictates of durational pressures and restrictions on articulatory
effort are weighted more heavily then the need to attain an optimal target height). The
introduction of an independent target means that the process is no longer contingent on
duration or other factors altering the realization of the original target. Reduction now
takes place regardless of phonetic circumstances, assuming that the structural description
of its application is met (e.g. the vowel is in a phonologically unstressed syllable). The
process thus far may correspond to Hyman’s stage 2 of phonologization, in which the
phonetic pattern is extrinsic, but subphonemic. Whether or not the addition of the
independent target for the unstressed vowel has also resulted in the categorical
neutralization of phonological contrasts (i.e. the proximity of the realizations of two
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