Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

3.2.3. Final syllable resistance to assimilation and reduction
By far the most common vocalic strength effect that can observed in final
syllables is some degree of resistance to reduction or assimilation processes which would
otherwise target vowels of similar prosodic status (unstressed, short, non-initial, etc.). In
such cases the final syllable is not the strongest licenser in the word (as it is in Hausa),
but rather shares this distinction with some other prosodically-prominent syllable. In
many, perhaps most of these systems, the strength effect is observed only at the phrase or
utterance level, with phrase-internal word-final syllables submitting to reduction (often
described as gradient or optional), in contrast with the obligatory categorical reduction or
assimilation of other non-prominent vowels. Very often the strength effect itself bears
some hallmark of gradient application: it is described as “optional”, rate- or style-
dependent, or even only partial. The following is a list of the languages in which it has
been possible to identify relatively clear cases of final-syllable resistance 56 . As this
particular pattern of final strength seems not to be widely remarked upon in the
literature 57 , a few words on each system are in order as well. The catalogue below in (20)
56
A major problem for the researcher wishing to determine whether, say, a given vowel reduction language
exhibits this effect lies simply in assessing the possible significance of a source’s silence on the matter. In
the course of this survey it became clear that for the subtler effects even in generously-described languages
native to societies with long-standing local traditions of phonetic experimentation (e.g. Russian), only the
most conscientious descriptions were likely to contain a direct assertion on this topic, to say nothing of
secondary sources from the international phonological literature.
57
Flemming 1993 notes Yakan and Maltese, though see below on some problems here. Kirchner 1998
gives an analysis of Nawuri, but in a somewhat different context.
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