Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

This same phonetic grounding would obtain with or without specific restrictions in the
phonology mandating that it be so.
Chapter two examines unstressed vowel reduction, of which the vast majority of
patterns are based on the neutralization of vowel height contrasts, the phonologized result
of perceptual difficulties produced by duration-dependent undershoot. Chapter three
looks at final syllables, in which both strong and weak licensing is attested. This
ambiguity is attributed to the phonetic complexity of final position: lengthening and
gestural enhancement increase the phonetic prominence of domain-final material, while
drops in F0 and intensity, along with devoicing or non-modal phonation, do the opposite.
Chapter four investigates initial syllables, showing that most reported examples of strong
licensing for vowels here can be attributed to past or present fixed initial stress.
Additionally, an experimental study involving Turkish isolates a process of small-scale
phonetic lengthening of initial-syllable vowels. A diachronic scenario implicating this
process in the development of vowel harmony patterns is presented. Chapter five
concludes the study with a brief comparison of split and integrated models of the
phonetics-phonology interface and with discussion of the roles of phonologization and
Universal Grammar in accounting for patterns of phonological typology.
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