Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

the UVR systems of Yakan, Timugon Murut, and Russian dialects. A phonetic durational
asymmetry between vowels in stem-initial syllables and other vowels provides an
obvious motivation for such an account of the rise of Bantu VHH. Further evidence
comes from a group of Bantu languages, such as Punu, which today lack VHH. In Punu
mid vowels are excluded from non-stem-initial syllables altogether (Kwenzi Mickala
1980, Hyman 1999: 240). In these syllables only /i, u, a/ of the five-vowel inventory may
be realized. Crucially, in Punu non-stem-initial syllables /a/ is realized as schwa, and
phonetic process which can only bespeak a concomitant reduction of phonetic duration.
Punu, then, can be seen as the natural endpoint of the chain of developments of which
VHH in various incarnations represent middle stages, a process of the imposition of
gradually stricter limitations on the realization of non-high vowels outside stem-initial
syllables. In the ancestor to phonologized systems of VHH (which of course develop
subsequently according to a logic constrained not by phonetic limitations), mid vowels
can occur in non-initial syllables only when supported by a mid vowel in the initial.
Subsequent weakening then leads to a situation such as that found in Punu, where mid
vowels are banned altogether from non-prominent positions, much in the manner of a
UVR system (though of course, without assuming an initial stress per se in the Bantu
cases).
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