Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

Penny (1969: 148-149) gives the vowel inventory below in (18) for the tonic and
non-final atonic syllables of Pasiego Spanish. He describes the lax variants of the vowels
in the following way: The high front -I- is centralized and lowered, as is -U-. -A- is
“fronted and slightly raised, almost [], and -O- is similar to the front rounded vowels of
French, but “without any great protrusion of the lips”. In final unstressed syllables, only
the [e, a, u, U] appear. Examples of the spreading of the lax feature are given in [19].
(18) Pasiego Spanish vowel inventory
a. i u b. I U
e o O
a A
(19) (McCarthy 1984: 293-294, Dyck 1995: 28)
a. plurals masc. sg. count
tense lax
abianus ‘hazels’ AvIÁnU ‘hazel’
soldáus ‘soldiers’ sOldÁUs ‘soldier
puúkus ‘young chickens’ pUÚkU ‘young chicken’
kantárus ‘5 gal jugs’ kAntÁrU ‘5 gal. jug’
b. sg. mass sg. count
málu mÁlU ‘evil’
límpju lÍmpjU ‘clean’
súju sÚjU ‘dirty’
133