Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

articulation becomes subject to the phonetically-induced variation common to the
realization of segments of its type. Which is to say, in circumstances of raised subglottal
pressure, the voicelessness, rather than being impeded, would actually be accompanied
by more turbulent airflow through the glottis. Gordon notes that voiceless vowels are
generally shorter than comparable voiced vowels, and indeed an active glottal abduction
gesture in the absence of lowered subglottal pressure would certainly increase volume-
velocity of airflow through the glottis, perhaps with the result of a substantially briefer
phrase-final vowel.
But is this really an instance of “phrase-final shortening”, in the sense of
cancellation or even reversal of the otherwise-common phonetic tendency toward phrase-
final lengthening? The answer here must be no. Phrase-final lengthening was
implemented as normal up until the moment of the phonologization of the final vowel’s
voicelessness, at which point the vowels durational properties would be changed
completely to correspond to the phonetic characteristics of the new target articulation. So
what happens to the final lengthening in the process? Certainly at this point phrase-final
vowels are now being realized without such lengthening (insofar as they are short and
voiceless by design). But this does not exclude the possibility that there is still final
lengthening in the system: While the conclusive data relevant to the example here would
come from, e.g., Turkana, an extremely interesting finding in an experiment on final
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