Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

3.7.2. Final short vowel avoidance
As much as Buckley is correct in seeing a crosslinguistic tendency for languages
to avoid contrastively long vowels in word-final position, and despite the fact that at least
some languages (e.g. Dutch) clearly have the means of implementing final lengthening
even in cases where the final vowel itself is resistant to the process, there is nonetheless
an equally clear tendency for languages to avoid certain short vowels in word-final
position as well. Johnson and Martin (2001) note in passing that Korean, Tigrinya and
Tigre all disallow final [], while Moroccan Arabic prohibits final []. To these examples
we may add the following:
(40) Avoidance of final short vowels
a. Eastern Mari (Finno-Ugric, Sebeok and Ingemann 1961, Flemming 1993,
Kangasmaa-Minn 1998, Majors 1998): The reduced vowel [] does not appear in word-
final position. See above, section 3.2.3. for details.
b. Sulaimania Kurdish (Iranian, Ahmad 1986, McCarus 1997): No short (lax) high
/, / in word-final open syllables.
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