Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

Chapter 4. Initial Syllables
Domain-initial syllables are famously associated in the literature with
phonological strength effects. For vowels, the best-known of these effects are the
harmony systems of the Uralic, Altaic, and Bantu languages. The first striking fact about
initial-syllable PN patterns affecting vowels is the wide variety of featural contrasts
potentially involved. Chapter 2 demonstrated that PN patterns involving stressed
syllables were severely limited in the set of contrasts they potentially restrict: the
overwhelming majority of cases involves vowel height, while nasalization and quantity
may also be affected. In initial syllables, by contrast, PN patterns are attested involving
vowel height (Bantu, Gujarati), frontness/backness (Uralic and Altaic), roundness (Uralic
and Altaic), nasality (Gokana, Kurux), pharyngealization (Tuvan, Tungusic), and
breathiness (Gujarati). Thus, while in unstressed vowel reduction the driving force behind
most attested was pressure on the articulation of non-high vowels due to the durational
impoverishment of unstressed syllables, in initial syllables clearly the phenomenon
leading to the phonologization of PN is something far more general in its effect.
The second striking fact about the positional neutralization of vowel contrasts in
initial syllables are their comparative rarity. I show in this chapter, in fact, that the vast
majority of cases cited in the literature as instances of initial syllable PN can in fact be
attributed to past or present fixed initial stress in the languages in question. Additionally,
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