Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

phonological licensing in question are best handled in synchrony through the
manipulation of abstract categorical symbols in the phonology. These patterns should be
held distinct, however, in their implementation from the phonetic patterns out of which,
through phonologization, they arise. It is the latter which will concern me here.
4.2. Licensing asymmetries in initial position
This section provides an overview of the typological generalizations emerging
from the database of several hundred languages I have constructed in connection with
this project. In my survey, the licensing asymmetries involving the onsets of initial
syllables described by Beckman and Smith are clearly attested. Other regularities,
however, not identified in previous studies, emerge as well. For cases in which initial
syllable onsets license more contrasts than the onsets of other syllables, Beckman cites as
examples, among others attested, Doyayo (implosives, labiovelars), Shilluk (secondary
articulations), and !Xóõ (clicks). Among languages with Positional Augmentation of
initial-syllable onsets, Smith cites Arapaho and Guhang Ifugao as requiring initial
syllables to have onsets, and Mongolian, Mbabaram and Campidanian Sardinian as
requiring that those onset consonants be of lower sonority. Again, that these contrast-
neutralizing constraints should be allowed in this psycholinguistically-strong position is
justified by the fact that the presence of a low-sonority onset aids in the segmentation of
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