Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

duration such as unstressed syllables in UVR languages, a wide target window for the
vowel height dimension models the increased variability of the specification, such that
contextual factors like duration can have a stronger influence over the outcome the
articulation.
I will assume the existence of both acoustic and articulatory target specifications,
though in some approaches, such Articulatory Phonology (e.g. Browman and Goldstein
passim, Zsiga 1993, Byrd 1996), targets are exclusively gestural in nature. I will also
assume that target windows may be resized according to structural position or prosodic
environment. The width of the target window itself is meant to encode variability by
context, such that this may seem unnecessary. On the other hand, it may be necessary to
assume in certain cases of positional allophony target windows of differing widths in
different circumstances, such that while a vowel under stress, for example, shows little
variation regardless of contextual changes in speech rate or segmental environment, an
unstressed vowel may be allowed to vary more under identical circumstances. Such a
possibility is mentioned by Keating (1996: 275-276) and assumed by Guenther (1995).
The case of vowel reduction in Russian described in chapter two may ultimately warrant
such a treatment, though further detailed phonetic investigation of contextual variation
will be necessary before this is entirely clear.
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