Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

2.6. Phonetic Determinism in UVR systems
I have argued in this chapter so far that the typological characteristics of systems
of unstressed vowel reduction are best accounted for using a phonologization-based
approach. This approach sees regularities in phonological patterns of UVR as a result of
the fact that most UVR systems arise from the phonologization of phonetic patterns of
vowel realization approximation and overlap cause by durational pressures on the
articulation of vowels in unstressed syllables. I have also illustrated in case studies
instances of both the phonetic and phonological ends of the phonologization process,
including cases in which the two are operative in a single language (Brazilian Portuguese,
Russian) or at opposite ends of a dialect continuum (Bulgarian). The patterns start off as
functions of the apportionment of duration in unstressed syllables, but once
phonologized, the neutralizations take place regardless of the phonetic characteristics of
the syllables in which they occur. In this sense, then, phonologized patterns of UVR are
to a large extent synchronically arbitrary. This phonetic arbitrariness is underscored by
the existence of patterns of phonological UVR not resulting from phonetically-
conditioned mergers in unstressed syllables to begin with.
Section 2.3.2 above raised the possibility that the East Slavic neutralization of /a/
and /o/ in unstressed syllables is actually the result of a failure of earlier short and long /a/
to split into qualitatively distinct vowels in those positions. If this is ultimately born out, a
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