Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

Gordon and Ladefoged mention allophonic phrase-final and phrase-initial
glottalization as cues to prosodic constituency, but make no mention of any potential
contradiction in these two phonetic environments. Comparing the two, the higher pitch
and subglottal pressure associated with the beginnings of phrases is well-suited to the
tightly-adducted-vocal-folds implementation of creak. In initial position, Gordon and
Ladefoged also note that glottalization is greater on accented syllables than on
unaccented (Pierrehumbert 1995, Dilley et al. 1996).
As concerns our phrase-final syllables, however, the relevant phonetic properties
seen so far have been the exact opposite of this: all things being equal phrase-final
position is associated with lowered pitch, lowered subglottal pressure, and the syllables
that most concern us are unstressed. Compare the two Russian phrase-final words in (31)
and (32), one with final stress, and one with medial. The unstressed final vowel (bottom)
is clearly creaky throughout, while the stressed vowel (top) is modal for at least 120 ms,
becoming increasingly breathy thereafter, with no creak to be found.
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