Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

phonetic and phonological perspectives. While Seediq UVR is typologically odd, the fact
that the phonologization approach to typological regularities locates the source of their
phonetic naturalness in diachronic development means that the phonological grammar is
in no way prevented from implementing a pattern such a pattern, should it somehow
come to arise.
2.7. Summary
I have argued in this chapter there is no reason to believe that categorical patterns
of vowel reduction have any more than a single formal implementation synchronically.
The formal system, be it based on Licensing constraints such as those employed by
Crosswhite for some UVR processes, or some other variant of Positional Faithfulness or
Positional Markedness should be chosen according to its ability to implement the attested
range of phonological patterns, rather than according to its ability to justify the existence
of that pattern from a functionalist perspective. If it is true that we must accept more than
one distinct formal mechanism for the synchronic implementation of UVR patterns, it
should be possible to demonstrate that those two patterns actually behave differently from
a synchronic point of view (rather than merely being attributable in a non-specific way to
two different sets of general functional principles 41 ). I have identified two (not
41 Principles which may indeed be active in the phonetics.
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