Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

initial and non-initial vowels from sources other than stress. This discussion leads into
4.5, which presents experimental evidence of initial-syllable vowel lengthening from
initial strengthening in Turkish, and details a hypothesis as to how this small durational
asymmetry could ultimately lead to the phonologization of vowel harmony.
4.4.1. Initial syllables in languages with fixed initial stress
Beckman 1998 notes that initial-syllable phonological strength effects are
robustly attested in the harmony systems of Turkic, Tungusic, Mongolian, Finno-Ugric,
and Bantu (Beckman 1998: 54), to which she adds also the surface-inventory reducing
patterns of Tamil and Dhangar-Kurux. I will assume for the sake of argument that the
first four of these families showing initial-syllable strength effects do not derive from a
common ancestor in which the strength effects were already present. Others, such as
Poppe (1960), would disagree, reconstructing some form of harmony in the proto-
language from which all this families are claimed to be derived. I will also assume that
their geographic contiguity is irrelevant to the explanation of the phonological patterns.
Steriade 1994 also lists asymmetries in initial syllable/non-initial syllable licensing in a
variety of Uralic and Altaic languages as well as Tiv and Gokana. The licensing
asymmetries in all of these are clear enough in the descriptions. The problem, however,
in all these cases, excluding of course the Niger-Congo examples, is that in each of these
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