Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

environment, deriving a number of distinct phenomena found there from this general
tendency (i.e. final devoicing, stress retraction, vowel loss) 84 . This conclusion is seriously
at odds with the findings catalogued above.
For consonants, previous work suggests a solution to this contradiction. Certainly
the study of Keating, Wright and Zhang (1999) shows a marked strengthening effect for
consonants in phrase-final position in English, such that their linguopalatal contact
becomes in some cases equal to that of comparable word-initial consonants in the same
phrasal position 85 , a pattern standing in direct opposition to the idea of phrase-final
articulatory weakness. On the other hand, Steriade (1997) analyzes the tendency for a
variety of consonantal contrasts to be neutralized in word-final position (and elsewhere)
as stemming from a lack of robust cues to consonant identity in that environment.
Specifically, lack of CV transitions and release burst obscures cues to consonant place
and laryngeal specification. We may add to this the sharp amplitude drop extremely
common if not universal in most phrase- or utterance-final syllables, and along with that
the tendency to phrase-final voicelessness cited by Hock, and what emerges is a picture
of the extreme perceptual weakness of consonants in final position, despite whatever
84 An important aspect of Hock’s conclusions, though, is on the need to distinguish phrase-final (in his
terms “Finality”) effects from word-final (“Right Edge”), in that in phrase-final position there is often
phonetic motivation for weakening (e.g. for final devoicing, see below), while in word-final but phraseinternal
position that motivation may be lacking. This means that weakening processes common to both
environments almost certainly begin in the larger domain and are generalized to the smaller. This parallels
what we have seen for final lengthening above.
85 Results are for the consonants /t, d, n, l/. The effect was weaker for /l/ than for the other consonants.
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