Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

demonstrated above, however, initial-syllable strengthening in Modern Turkish produces,
independent of the position of stress, a durational asymmetry between the vowels of
initial and non-initial syllables. Assuming domain-initial strengthening to have been
active in the past as it is today, the same would be true of Turkic at the time of the
phonologization of vowel harmony. This durational asymmetry seems not to affect the
dominant direction of coarticulation in Modern Turkish (Inkelas et al. 2001). It could,
however, produce significant changes in the perception thereof.
Turkish vowel-to-vowel coarticulation patterns received absolute measurements
in Inkelas et al.. These were arrived at through comparison of mean formant values at
vowel onsets or offsets in a coarticulated context (adjacent vowel different) with the
corresponding values found in a baseline context (adjacent vowels identical). In a relative
sense, however, an absolute coarticulatory effect of a given magnitude would nonetheless
occupy a smaller portion of the total duration of a longer vowel than it would of a shorter
vowel. This coarticulatory effect, however strong in the absolute sense, could then prove
perceptually less salient on the longer initial-syllable vowel than on a shorter one. In
Turkish this would mean that the overall stronger effect of anticipatory coarticulation
might nonetheless fail to be perceptually robust on the lengthened vowels of the initial
syllable. By the same token, carryover coarticulation, however weak overall, would
receive additional salience perceptually on the shorter vowels of non-initial syllables.
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