Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

phonologically distinct vowels in unstressed syllables has led to the substitution of a
single target for both, and with this the merger of the two phonological categories into
one in this position) is another matter altogether.
In Stage 3, the status of the final syllable is set through phonologization.
Resistance to phonologization notwithstanding, it is still possible for the final syllable to
follow its word internal counterparts in becoming phonologized. This stage in the
developmental path of final strength is in some ways the most difficult to find
incontrovertible examples of for (at least) two reasons: Without experimental evidence
(of which there is a limited supply on this question for languages which are neither
Romance nor Germanic), it not possible to be certain that the status of the final syllable is
truly phonologized, despite assertions or implications found in descriptive studies. In this
respect the assertion that a process is not phonologized, or remains gradient, is far more
indicative and likely to be correct, variation perhaps being more readily perceptible to
impressionistic evaluation than the lack thereof. The second problem is that even if a
process is shown to be phonologized in the present, though we can suppose that it must
have passed through some gradient stage or stages to arrive at that point, there is rarely
clear evidence that this was actually so.
Nonetheless, one possibility is still for the pattern of Final Resistance to become
phonologized. This amounts to the generalization of the least reduced variant of the final-
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