Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

of Creek unexplained. Were this all simply a matter of phrase-final vowels lengthening
while still reducing to the same degree as phrase-internal vowels, it would be possible to
account for the application of reduction in the presence of lengthening through
phonologization, as the generalization of spectral targets from the phrase-internal variants
of word-final vowels to all tokens of those vowels regardless of phrasal position or
duration. As noted above, Major (1985) argues precisely this to have taken place for
those speakers of Brazilian Portuguese who have generalized reduction of the mid vowels
to [i] and [u] even in phrase-final lengthening contexts 75 . Even this, however, fails to
resolve the entire problem: a number of languages show reduction of vowels only or
especially in phrase-final position. Here it is clear that no such generalization has taken
place. The phrase-final syllable is simply weaker phonetically than the non-phrase-final.
Two examples of languages apparently displaying this pattern of phrase-final reduction
have already been cited 76 . I will return to this problem below in discussion of final
weakening effects. For now it is enough to note that if a process of supralaryngeal final
fade exists at all, it is far from universal, given the abundant attestation of the very
75
In Bulgarian, for example, phrase-internal word-final unstressed vowels are generally extremely short,
moreso even than other unstressed vowels. In phrase-final position, however, those vowels undergo
lengthening. This could then be another such case. I have not located any claim in the literature
documenting Final Resistance in Bulgarian, nor have I noticed it impressionistically in my work with the
language. Of course, neither of these facts necessarily means that it does not exist.
76
Eastern Andalusian Spanish, where Sanders (1994: 118) claims that phrase-final vowels undergo an
especially strong degree of reduction, and Pugliese dialects of Italian, where posttonic vowels reduce to
schwa but are retained, while phrase-final schwa is deleted (Loporcaro 1997: 340-341).
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