Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

enough implementation of phrase-final lengthening, gradient phrase-final resistance à la
Russian or Brazilian Portuguese is present from the outset of the development of vowel
reduction, emerging automatically as a consequence of the duration-dependent reduction
of vowels 80 .
The second stage is marked by the phonologization of part or all of the word-
internal reduction pattern. In Uyghur, for example, word-internal vowel raising is already
categorical. It occurs in that position whenever its structural description is met, regardless
of the physical duration of the segments involved (as evidenced by the raising of new
long vowels from compensatory lengthening). In word-final position, however, the
process is still gradient and rate-dependent, taking place when the vowel is shorter
(phrase internally or in fast speech), and meeting resistance when the vowel is longer
(phrase-final position or in careful speech). In such a system, then, the internal
categorical reduction pattern is an innovation, while the final-syllable gradient pattern is a
relic from a previous system. It is appropriate at this point to wonder why it should be
that the reduction effect is phonologized only word-internally, leaving a gradient effect in
the final syllable, while the reverse seems not to occur. As noted above, phonologization
of an effect is most likely where that effect is robust and consistent. This is the case for
80 Referring of course only to the Degree Two gradient reduction patterns of these latter, the Degree One
patterns being categorical in both.
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