Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

otherwise phonologically-strong positions. Another possibility is that other phonetic
features found in final position are lowering the vowels here, specifically, the presence of
creakiness or breathiness/devoicing. Creaky phonation is certainly commonly enough
associated with raising of F1 crosslinguistically (Gordon and Ladefoged 2001: 400),
though breathiness seems if anything to have the reverse effect. In general the effect of
/h/ on neighboring vowels is somewhat schizophrenic. In many languages it patterns with
other gutturals in lowering neighboring vowels, while in other languages in which
gutturals lower or retract vowels, /h/ has no such effect. These patterns are surveyed and
analyzed by Rose (1996). Very briefly put, Rose advances a phonological analysis of
these systems in which vowel-lowering /h/ has a Pharyngeal node in its feature-geometric
representation, while non-lowering /h/ is placeless. The pharyngeal specification is a
consequence of the presence in the vowel inventories of certain other gutturals (uvular
and pharyngeal continuants), with which the laryngeals must contrast. Cases appearing to
be exceptional are argued to involve the spread of [RTR], which /h/ lacks.
If lengthening and sonority enhancement/strengthening are responsibility for
vowel lowering, then this potential instance of phonological weakness may be a
consequence of phonetic prominence. If creakiness or devoicing are involved, though,
then it is phonetic weakening which is responsible. Again, a combination of these may
ultimately be more likely, in which case phonological weakness emerges from a
244