Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

velic opening. There has been much dispute as to why exactly this should be so. Whalen
and Beddor (1989) support a production-based hypothesis, whereby velum lowering is an
automatic consequence of the articulation of low vowels, and not due to active control of
velum height by the speaker. It is also well-known that as systems develop distinctive
nasalization, it is generally the low vowels which nasalize first (Chen 1973, Whalen and
Beddor 1989), suggesting that this inherent nasalization also makes them more vulnerable
to reinterpretation as intentionally nasalized. In order to explain this fact (and particularly
its instantiation in Eastern Algonquian spontaneous nasalization), Whalen and Beddor
cite experimental data from Henderson 1984 showing that the difference in velum height
between oral and nasal /a/ in Hindi is less than the difference for other vowels. Their
interpretation of these facts is that /a/, already produced with a lowered velum, will
achieve nasalization with a relatively smaller additional lowering of the velum than
would other vowels. Thus, if all vowels were produced with the same slight amount of
velum lowering (for whatever reason), /a/ might achieve a more salient degree of
nasalization than other vowels. If this is the right explanation, then we could imagine
that, were there in fact a slight trend toward velum lowering on all vowels phrase-finally,
the same amount of lowering might cause /a/ to be perceived as intentionally nasalized
sooner than any other vowel in the system.
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