Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

unified phonologization scenario accounting for the development of a range of systems of
Final Strength effects, relating them one to another in the process. But we have yet to
discuss what is perhaps the most crucial factor in accounting for the ambiguous status of
final position within the typology of Positional Neutralization. This is the alarming (in
terms of the discussion so far) propensity for phonetic and phonological weakening to
occur in those very same syllables, whose propensity for strengthening we have just
reviewed in some detail.
3.5. On assumptions concerning licensing capacity and phonetic prominence
All the instances of phonological final resistance seen in the catalogue in (20)
above (§3.2.3) are cases in which more than one position within the word fails to undergo
some reduction or assimilation process, and in each case the exceptional positions have
also shared the characteristic of heavy relatively longer phonetic durations than the
reducing or assimilating positions. The case of Brazilian Portuguese, for speakers for
whom both pre- and posttonic reduction is phonologized, even has three distinct levels of
licensing capacity (stressed, pretonic and posttonic), which correspond directly to three
characteristic degrees of phonetic length. The case of the Pasiego Spanish tense/lax
contrast was presented above as evidence of the danger present in assuming automatically
that the ability to license additional contrasts in a system must be correlated with an
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