Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

commonly enough resolved with glottalization crosslinguistically, though its realization
in Yucuna is not described). In this instance, then, it seems the acoustic environment
conditioning reanalysis must be present both before and somewhere during/after the
vowel in order for phrase-final nasalization to take place.
One further case comes from Warekena (Northern Arawak, Aikhenvald 1996),
which exhibits prepausal (and optional word-final non-pre-pausal) insertion of a sequence
/-hV/, the vowel is a nasalized copy of the preceding word-final vowel. Aikhenvald
describes this as the result of three rules: ‘h’-insertion, translaryngeal harmony, and
vowel nasalization. Diachronically though it seems more likely to be a consequence of
phonologization of a combination of final lengthening, breathy phonation and
spontaneous nasalization.
The correct explanation for phrase-final nasalization could thus be a consequence
of a weakening tendency in velic closure toward the end of a phrase, or a perceptually-
motivated result of another phonetic characteristic such as lengthening or devoicing or
glottalization. It could, in fact, be some combination of all of these, or perhaps differ
from case to case.
Whatever its source, it has the potential to neutralize the distinction between oral
and nasal vowels word- or phrase-finally in some languages, thus making final position
phonologically weak for contrasts of nasality. This is also the case in South Gujarati
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