Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

continues to operate (Li 1996: 147). Avrorin (1959) transcribes Li's // as 'o', calling it
high-mid. In general he treats the pharyngealization distinction as one of vowel height,
even describing it in terms of jaw aperture in places. That said: In non-initial syllables /,
/ have a tendency to raise (lessen degree of pharyngeal constriction?) toward /i, u/. In
final syllables this frequently results in complete overlap. This is more consistent with //
than with //, which in some words resists reduction, particularly in shorter words in
which the preceding vowel is not long, and especially if the preceding vowel is also [] .
// is also especially likely to reduce following a long vowel. The prominence of the
initial syllable in Nanai is likely either a relic of earlier Tungusic initial stress (though see
Chapter 4 on initial-syllable prominence in Turkish for an alternative).
3.6.5.3. The phonetics of final syllable reduction
It is necessary to note once again that in virtually all examples above the domain
of the application of reduction is said to be "word-final". At first consideration, this could
mean one of three things: 1. The language has no final lengthening or strengthening, and
final syllables are simply all phonetically weak, 2. The pattern began in phrase internal
final vowels and was generalized to phrase-final vowels in the manner proposed above
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See the note above on the propensity for final vowels to reduce following long penults. Provocatively,
however, Nanai has fixed final stress, which is not, however, duration-cued (Avrorin 1959, 62-3),
apparently being manifest primarily by raised F0 (Note discussion of final stressed vowel devoicing in
Turkish under similar circumstances. On the failure to reduce following an identical vowel, see the
discussion in Chapter 4 below.
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