geminates

[Robert Blust]

Dear all,

I've just returned from three weeks in Taiwan and Malaysia, and am a bit
late with this, but here it is anyway.

Adrian Clynes mentions that `Some languages of the Baram (north
Sarawak) are said to have phonemically long consonants, however the
evidence in some cases at least suggests that they instead allow sequences
of identical consonants, probably only hetero-syllabically.'

Such consonants have been reported for Berawan in the following
publications:

Blust, Robert.  1992.  The long consonants of Long Terawan.  Bijdragen tot
de taal-, land- en volkenkunde 148:409-427.

Blust, Robert.  1995.  Notes on Berawan consonant gemination.  Oceanic
Linguistics 34:123-138.

Garcia-Bellido, Paloma and Beatrice Clayre.  1996.  Prosodic constraints
and representations in the Berawan word.  Ms. 35 pp.

Contrary to what Clynes suggests, these are true geminates --- that is,
tautosyllabic segments which function as syllable onsets.  This analysis
if specifically addressed by Garcia-Bellido and Clayre, who present
several arguments for favoring it over the hetero-syllabic alternative.

Kiput, spoken at the confluence of the Tutoh with the Baram, also has
tautosyllabic geminates which function as syllable onsets.

Bob Blust

On Fri, 7 Apr 2000 aclynes at ubd.edu.bn wrote:

> >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
>
>