Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

ounding or ATR contrasts are exceedingly rare, if not utterly unattested 7 . The
neutralization of vowel height in UVR systems has commonly been attributed to the
difficulty of reaching articulatory targets for non-high vowels in the shortened durations
allowed vowels in unstressed syllables in most of the languages in question (Flemming
2001). Compression of the vowel space along this dimension due to undershoot of
targets, together with a shorter window within which to correctly identify the unstressed
vowel leads to the possibility of misperceptions by listeners leading to reinterpretation of
speakers’ intended pronunciations, In this way the neutralization of height contrasts is
phonologized. Nearly identical patterns of vowel reduction are presented in their
phonologized and unphonologized states, in some cases in different positions within a
single language.
In contrast to the relatively simple typological patterning found in stressed and
unstressed syllables, Chapter 3 shows the array of effects found in final syllables to be
substantially less uniform. There is robust crosslinguistic attestation of patterns of final
syllable, and particularly final vowel resistance to neutralization processes for which the
vowel of the final would otherwise be a legitimate target. The existence of these final
resistance effects is attributed to the well-known phonetic pattern of domain-final
7
In the sense in which a UVR system reducing five vowels [i, e, a, o, u] to three vowels [i, , u] is
unambiguously based on the neutralization of height contrasts, or palatal harmonies are unambiguously
based on the neutralization of contrasts of frontness or backness.
30