Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

salient. Again, the distinction is essentially that drawn by Ladefoged and Maddieson
(1996: 49) between passive devoicing and active devoicing. In the former case, that
involved in gradient final devoicing, subglottal pressure drops at the end of the phrase to
the point where voicing can no long be maintained. The vocal folds thus cease to vibrate,
but not because they have been actively configured to do so. In the case of active
devoicing, on the other hand, what is by hypothesis occurring in the phonologized cases
is a purposeful devoicing of all or part of the relevant vowel, most likely through some
degree of intentional glottal abduction. With an active abduction gesture, devoicing is no
longer a function of low subglottal pressure. An increase in subglottal pressure, such as
that associated with a stressed vowel in some languages, would now serve actually to
enhance the perceptual robustness of the devoicing, rather than to impede its
implementation, as in the unphonologized cases. A similar account is presented below of
the phonologization process in analogous cases of final glottalization.
Further evidence that final devoicing is phonologized in this way in Afar comes
from what Bliese describes as “h-epenthesis’ (Bliese 1976: 160). As Bliese describes it, a
stressed word-final vowel may be followed by and [h] phrase-internally when the
following word is vowel-initial. He characterizes the process as an optional means of
keeping the two words separate to avoid the confusion which the application of
assimilation rules in external sandhi would cause. In the case of certain morphological
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