Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

limitation to the onset consonant, yet the sonority rise from C to V implicated in
boundary-demarcation by Smith is surely as much a property of V as C. Additionally,
even if the constraint affected only the vowel, by mandating that it by long, for example,
surely the fact that the vowel is not always in absolute-initial position cannot mean it is
incapable of assisting the listener in the process of segmentation of the speech stream.
Indeed, it is a truism of functionalist speculation that systemic properties like fixed stress
(initial or otherwise) and even word-bounded vowel harmony ultimately serve some
demarcative purpose, and yet do not necessarily involve directly boundary-adjacent
material. The purely psycholinguistic approach to licensing asymmetries in initial
syllables is therefore by no means as restrictive as it would need to be to account for the
typology of Positional Augmentation effects in that position.
Turning to vocalic contrasts, as noted, Positional Augmentation effects appear not
to occur. As for Positional Strength, perhaps the most striking thing about initial position
is, despite numerous claims in the literature, how very few such licensing asymmetries
are in fact attested. Indeed, even of those known and accepted, the majority are either
ambiguous in status from the outset, or ultimately attributable to phonetic factors rather
than to the “initiality” of the syllable per se, or any psycholinguistic prominence
bestowed on the initial syllable thereby.
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