geminates

[Abigail Cohn]

While some phonologists assume that geminates and long consonants are the
same thing, many others don't.  In fact there is both phonological and
phonetic evidence supporting a distinction.  In a recent dissertation,
Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of Geminate Timing, Bill Ham addresses
this question from both a phonological and phonetic point of view
(available from the Cornell Linguistic Circle publications at
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/linguistics/clcpubs/dissertations.html).

Not only might the timing of the segments themselves be different, other
aspects of phonetic timing are organized in a different way in the case of
geminates. The dissertation is cross-linguistic in nature, but does include
a detailed acoustic study of the geminates in Madurese.

Abby Cohn
Cornell University



>
>>A recent controversy regarding geminates in Tausug (Southern Philippines)
>>has made me realize that some scholars seem to use the terms _geminate_and
>>_long consonant_ as though they were synonymous.
>>I am aware that in some theories (autosegmental phonology?)  both are
>>treated on equal footing.
>>Yet, a double /m/, for instance, is not a long /m/.
>>Has this problem been addressed in Austronesian languages?
>>Jean-Paul G. Potet
>
>With apologies for the late response.  I agree that _geminate_and _long
>consonant_  seem often to be taken to mean the same thing, when there is a
>fundamental difference between (for example) a) a sequence of two distinct,
>non-long segments, which happen to be identical, but which occupy
>respectively coda and onset of distinct syllables, and b) a truly long
>segment.  The two types could presumably be treated identically only at the
>level of feature sharing, but not at other levels.  Only the latter could
>logically occur in the onset of a syllable.  From memory, I think Korean,
>Hungarian and Pattani Malay may all have the latter.
>Some languages of the Baram (north Sarawak) are said to have phonemic long
>consonants, however the evidence in some cases at least suggests that they
>instead allow sequences of identical consonants, probably only
>hetero-syllabically.  I'm not aware of anything published on this as a
>descriptive/analyitical problem.  Do you have a reference for the Tausug
>discussion?
>(Parallel analytical problems involve truly long vowels vs sequences of
>identical vowels, prenasalised stops vs /N/+/C/ sequences, diphthongs vs
>vowel-vowel or vowel-glide sequences, and so on.)
>
>Adrian Clynes
>Adrian Clynes
>Department of English Language & Applied Linguistics
>Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Brunei Darussalam
>Please address mail for me to:  PO Box 594, MPC, BSB 3577, Brunei
>phone: 673-2-249923, wait 3 rings then dial 406;
>fax: 673-2-249528
>