Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

language with the right type of prosodic system some phonetic initial strengthening can
have a measurable effect on the duration of all initial syllable vowels. Furthermore, I
have presented a scenario explaining how the small-scale durational asymmetry this
causes between initial and non-initial syllables can lead to the development of a system of
vowel harmony such as those attested in the initial-syllable strength languages left over
when the initial-stress group has been removed from consideration. The fact that such
patterns are as rare as they seem to be follow from several factors about the
developmental process I propose: first, only some subset of the world’s languages (of
unclear proportions) have prosodic systems (with non-duration-cued stress) which might
allow the expression of postboundary strengthening on the vowels of initial syllables.
Second, in addition to the sound change phonologizing patterns of vowel-to-vowel
coarticulation which is the first step in my account, the development of a harmony system
of the kind found in the Turkic languages relied crucially on subsequent morphological
changes rooted in paradigm uniformity to extend harmonization across-the-board. Third,
these two steps are likely to take place creating word-bounded vowel harmony only in
languages of a particular morphological profile; for the process to work, the language
must have almost exclusively mono- or disyllabic roots and robust (if not exclusive)
transparently agglutinative suffixing morphology. The need for the convergence of all
these factors for a true initial-syllable strength effect to arise for vowels explains both
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