Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

durational asymmetry between lexically stressed and unstressed vowels, even if the
stressed syllable does not ultimately carry a nuclear pitch accent. This asymmetry is thus
present in all potential tokens of a given lexical form. Final lengthening, on the other
hand, the phonetic source of Final Strength effects, has been shown in many if not all
languages to be strongest and most consistent before higher-level phrase boundaries
(such of those of IP or Utterance). At the word level, by contrast, final lengthening is
often realized inconsistently and to a much weaker degree than in phrase-final syllables.
In Italian, in fact, Farnetani and Kori 1990 claim that consistent, robust final lengthening
takes place only utterance finally, with the phrase-final effect being somewhat ephemeral
and less consistent (a pattern which they attribute to the “syllable-timed” rhythm of the
language). This means ultimately that relatively few tokens of a given lexical form will
be pronounced with substantial final lengthening. While the consistency of the durational
asymmetry between lexically stressed and unstressed vowels then makes this pattern an
extremely likely candidate for eventual phonologization (as categorical vowel reduction),
the opposite pattern for final lengthening makes phonologization less likely, with any
effect to development often remaining gradient and phrase-level indefinitely (as in
Uyghur).
While the degree of any positional durational asymmetry is thus at the word level
greater in the stressed/unstressed pair than in the final/non-final, the nature of the
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