Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

certain patterns will be attested in certain positions to the exclusion of others in the
phonology whether these patterns are specifically derived by the phonological grammar
or not.
The role of the phonetics in determining the typology of positional neutralization
patterns now becomes clear. The link between phonetic reality and the phonological
process, however, I argue is severed at the moment of phonologization in a manner which
is not compatible with the direct connection between these two assumed in the Licensing-
by-Cue and other “direct phonetics” approaches described above. The sporadic surfacing
of phonetically unmotivated neutralization patterns through the agency of layered sound
change or the operation of analogy underscores the indifference of the phonological
grammar to the phonetic identity of entities it manipulates in patterns of positional
neutralization.
1.3. Phonetics and Phonology in the Phonologization Approach
The phonologization approach to phonological typology I advance in this study
rests on the following assumptions concerning the relationship between phonetics and
phonology: phonetics and phonology are separated by a formal split of essentially the
type proposed by Keating (1988b, 1996, inter alia), and assumed with some variations by
Cohn (1990), Zsiga (1993) and many since. While these models differ in some respects,
16