Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

The forms in (a.) demonstrate that posttonic vowels are shorter than pretonic in
disyllables, while the forms in (b.) show both this asymmetry, and that the vowel of the
second posttonic (word-final open syllable) is substantially shorter even than the vowel of
first posttonic. In Bulgarian, similarly, all posttonic syllables are characterized by
durational reduction of up to %70 in comparison with the corresponding stressed vowels
(Savitska and Bojadzhiev 1988: 52), with unstressed final vowels (especially, it seems,
[u] < /o/, /u/) often barely perceptible if articulated at all, even in forms such as the
complementizer /kato/ (frequently realized in colloquial speech and even probably
lexicalized dialectally as proclitic [kt]), which due to syntactic restrictions are excluded
from ever appearing in phrase-final contexts in the first place. It would not, therefore, be
surprisingly if these vowels were seen to undergo a gradient devoicing process
completely independent of any concerns regarding domain-final subglottal pressure, in
which, for example, unstressed word-final high vowels following a voiceless consonant
phrase-medially before a voiceless-obstruent-initial word were to devoice completely,
while variations of these parameters would induce lesser degrees of devoicing. The
existence of gradient devoicing patterns phrase-internally is thus not in and of itself
evidence that the phonologization scenario and prediction given above are incorrect.
That said, I know of no clear instances of counterexamples to the prediction.
Certain devoicing patterns not mentioned by Gordon, such as that of the Cushitic
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