Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

Languages in which there is a contrast between phonologically long and short
vowels in all positions save word-final are extremely common crosslinguistically. Final
position, indeed, can safely be pronounced "weak" for the licensing of quantity contrasts,
all things being equal.
Examples include Yukulta (Pama-Nyungan, Keen 1983), Koyra (Omotic,
Hayward 1982), Dasenech (Cushitic, Sasse 1976), Biyagó (Atlantic, Wilson 2000-2001),
many Dravidian languages, including Gadaba (Bhaskararao 1998), Kolami
(Subrahmanyam 1998), Konda (Krishnamurti and Benham 1998) and Dhangar Kurux
(Gordon 1976), Gatha Avestan (Testen 1997), and Tigre (Semitic, Raz 1983). In most
cases, the lack of contrast concerns phrase-medial and final syllables alike, and the
resulting vowel is said to be short, presumably varying in actual duration according to
position like any other vowel. In some instances, however, the vowel is said to be long. In
Gatha Avestan (Testen 1997), for example, all final vowels are written as long (though
this is obviously no guarantee as to their pronunciation). In Kolami, Subrahmanyam
describes final vowels as long uniformly. Still other cases speak of final vowels which
are half-long. These include Dhangar Kurux (Gordon 1976) and Maltese (Borg and
Azzopardi-Alexander 1997), in which latter short vowels all deleted, and remaining long
vowels shortened, but are apparently realized longer than they would be word-internally.
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