Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

eason he chose to measure final vowels in non-pre-pausal position was, in his words, “to
prevent vowel reduction due to suprasegmental processes” (1994: 159). Specifically, “In
eastern Andalusian the phrase-final position is subject to considerable reduction” (1994:
118).
From the above it is clear that in Pasiego and other laxing harmony languages of
Spain we are not dealing with the type of system in which certain features occur
contrastively only in positions where they are perceptually most robust (such as in some
of the vowel reduction systems discussed in Chapter 2, or the strong-to-weak harmony
systems dealt with below in Chapter 4). In fact, the very opposite appears to be the case.
In Pasiego Spanish tense and lax contrast underlyingly only in a position, whose phonetic
characteristics would actually hinder accurate perception of fine differences in vowel
quality (i.e. a position characterized by shorter durations, laxing or centralization of
vowels, in some systems even raising of mid vowels leading to merger with highs, and
increased susceptibility to devoicing). In these systems the direction of spreading then is
not from strong position to weak position, but from weak (phonetically non-prominent) to
strong. This characterization places laxing harmony in a class with other weak-to-strong
assimilation processes such as those traditionally labeled umlauts or metaphonies 51 . The
51
In fact, the very northwestern Spanish dialects in question also exhibit vowel height harmonies. While
the systems are complex (see Flemming 1993 or Dyck 1995 for details), in Pasiego for example, the /-U/
suffix conditioning laxing harmony also raises tonic mid vowels to lax high vowels in a manner
reminiscent of the metaphony systems of Italian dialects. This in itself is perhaps the strongest evidence of
the type of process involved here.
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