Inphonetics andphonology,gemination (/ˌdʒɛmɪˈneɪʃən/ ⓘ; from Latingeminatio 'doubling', itself fromgemini 'twins'[1]), orconsonant lengthening, is an articulation of aconsonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant.[2] It is distinct fromstress. Gemination is represented in many writing systems by adoubled letter and is often perceived as a doubling of the consonant.[3] Some phonological theories use 'doubling' as a synonym for gemination, while others describe two distinct phenomena.[3]
Consonant length is a distinctive feature in certain languages, such asJapanese. Other languages, such asModern Greek, do not have word-internal phonemic consonant geminates.
Consonant gemination andvowel length are independent in languages like Arabic, Japanese, Hungarian, Malayalam, and Finnish; however, in languages like Italian,Norwegian, andSwedish, vowel length and consonant length are interdependent. For example, in Norwegian and Swedish, a geminated consonant is always preceded by a short vowel, while an ungeminated consonant is preceded by a long vowel. In Italian, a geminate is always preceded by a short vowel, but a long vowel precedes a short consonant only if the vowel is stressed.
Lengthenedfricatives,nasals,laterals,approximants andtrills are simply prolonged. In lengthenedstops, the obstruction of the airway is prolonged, which delays release, and the closure is lengthened. That is,/tʰː/ is pronounced[tːʰ], not *[tʰː]. Inaffricates, it is also the closure that is lengthened, not the fricative release. That is,/t͜sː/ is pronounced[tːs], not *[tsː].[4][5]
In terms of consonant duration, Berber and Finnish are reported to have a 3-to-1 ratio,[6] compared with around 2-to-1 (or lower) in Japanese,[7] Italian, and Turkish.[6]
Gemination of consonants is distinctive in some languages and then is subject to various phonological constraints that depend on the language.
In some languages, like Italian, Swedish,Faroese,Icelandic, andLuganda, consonant length and vowel length depend on each other. A short vowel within a stressed syllable almost always precedes a long consonant or a consonant cluster, and a long vowel must be followed by a short consonant. InClassical Arabic, along vowel was lengthened even more before permanently-geminateconsonants.
In other languages, such asFinnish, consonant length and vowel length are independent of each other. In Finnish, both are phonemic;taka/taka/ 'back',takka/takːa/ 'fireplace' andtaakka/taːkːa/ 'burden' are different, unrelated words. Finnish consonant length is also affected byconsonant gradation. Another important phenomenon issandhi, which produces long consonants at word boundaries when there is anarchiphonemicglottal stop|otaʔse| >otas se 'take it (imperative)!'.
In addition, in some Finnish compound words, if the initial word ends in ane, the initial consonant of the following word is geminated:jätesäkki 'trash bag'[jætesːækːi],tervetuloa 'welcome'[terʋetːuloa]. In certain cases, av after au is geminated by most people:ruuvi 'screw'/ruːʋːi/,vauva 'baby'[ʋauʋːa]. In theTampere dialect, if a word receives gemination ofv afteru, theu is often deleted (ruuvi[ruʋːi],vauva[ʋaʋːa]), andlauantai 'Saturday', for example, receives a medialv[lauʋantai], which can in turn lead to deletion ofu ([laʋːantai]).
Distinctive consonant length is usually restricted to certain consonants and environments. There are very few languages that have initial consonant length; among those that do arePattani Malay,Chuukese,Moroccan Arabic, a fewRomance languages such asSicilian andNeapolitan, as well as manyHigh Alemannic German dialects, such as that ofThurgovia. Some African languages, such asSetswana andLuganda, also have initial consonant length: it is very common in Luganda and indicates certaingrammatical features. Incolloquial Finnish andItalian, long consonants occur in specific instances as sandhi phenomena.
The difference between singleton and geminate consonants varies within and across languages.Sonorants show more distinct geminate-to-singleton ratios whilesibilants have less distinct ratios. Thebilabial andalveolar geminates are generally longer thanvelar ones.[6]
The reverse of gemination reduces a long consonant to a short one, which is calleddegemination. It is a pattern in Baltic-Finnicconsonant gradation that the strong grade (often thenominative) form of the word is degeminated into a weak grade (often all the other cases) form of the word:taakka >taakan (burden, of the burden). As a historical restructuring at thephonemic level, word-internal long consonants degeminated inWestern Romance languages: e.g. Spanish /ˈboka/ 'mouth' vs. Italian /ˈbokka/, both of which evolved from Latin /ˈbukka/.[8]
WrittenArabic indicates gemination with a diacritic (ḥaraka) shaped like a lowercase Greekomega or a rounded Latinw, called theشَدَّةshadda:ّ . Written above the consonant that is to be doubled, theshadda is often used todisambiguate words that differ only in the doubling of a consonant where the word intended is not clear from the context. For example, in Arabic,Form I verbs andForm II verbs differ only in the doubling of the middle consonant of the triliteral root in the latter form,e. g.,درسdarasa (with full diacritics:دَرَسَ) is a Form I verb meaningto study, whereasدرّسdarrasa (with full diacritics:دَرَّسَ) is the corresponding Form II verb, with the middler consonant doubled, meaningto teach.
InBerber, each consonant has a geminate counterpart, and gemination is lexically contrastive. The distinction between single and geminate consonants is attested in medial position as well as in absolute initial and final positions.
In addition to lexical geminates, Berber also has phonologically-derived and morphologically-derived geminates. Phonological alternations can surface by concatenation (e.g.,[fassin] 'give him two!') or by complete assimilation (e.g./rad=ki-sli/[rakkisli] 'he will touch you'). Morphological alternations include imperfective gemination, with some Berber verbs forming theirimperfective stem by geminating one consonant in their perfective stem (e.g.,[ftu] 'go! PF',[fttu] 'go! IMPF'), as well as quantity alternations between singular and plural forms (e.g.,[afus] 'hand',[ifassn] 'hands').
Austronesian languages in thePhilippines,Micronesia, andSulawesi are known to have geminate consonants.[9]
TheFormosan languageKavalan makes use of gemination to mark intensity, as insukaw 'bad' vs.sukkaw 'very bad'.[9]
Word-initial gemination occurs in variousMalay dialects, particularly those found on the east coast of theMalay Peninsula such asKelantan-Pattani Malay andTerengganu Malay.[10][11] Gemination in these dialects of Malay occurs for various purposes such as:
ThePolynesian languageTuvaluan allows for word-initial geminates, such asmmala 'overcooked'.[12]
InEnglish phonology, consonant length is not distinctive withinroot words. For instance,baggage is pronounced/ˈbæɡɪdʒ/, not*/bæɡːɪdʒ/. However, phonetic gemination does occur marginally.
Gemination is found across words and across morphemes when the last consonant in a given word and the first consonant in the following word are the samefricative,nasal, orstop.[13]
For instance:
Withaffricates, however, this does not occur. For instance:
In most instances, the absence of this doubling does not affect the meaning, though it may confuse the listener momentarily. The followingminimal pairs represent examples where the doublingdoes affect the meaning in most accents:
Note that whenever[(ɹ)] appears (in brackets), non-rhotic dialects of English don't have the gemination, but rather lengthen the preceding vowel.
In some dialects gemination is also found for some words when the suffix-ly follows a root ending in -l or -ll, as in:
but not
In some varieties ofWelsh English, the process takes place indiscriminately between vowels, e.g. inmoney[ˈmɜn.niː] but it also applies with graphemic duplication (thus, orthographically dictated), e.g.butter[ˈbɜt̚.tə][14]
In French, gemination is usually not phonologically relevant and therefore does not allow words to be distinguished: it mostly corresponds to an accent of insistence (c'est terrifiant realised[ˈtɛʁ.ʁi.fjɑ̃]), or meets hyper-correction criteria: one "corrects" one's pronunciation, despite the usual phonology, to be closer to a realization that one imagines to be more correct: thus, the wordillusion is sometimes pronounced[il.lyˈzjɔ̃] by influence of the spelling.
However, gemination is contrastive in a few cases. Some words, such asnetteté, andverrerie, are generally pronounced with a silent e following the double consonant, resulting in a pronunciation that reflects the gemination. Statements such aselle a dit ('she said') ~elle l'a dit ('she said it')/ɛladi/ ~/ɛll‿adi/ can commonly be distinguished by gemination. In a more sustained pronunciation, gemination distinguishes the conditional (and possibly the future tense) from the imperfect:courrais 'would run'/kuʁ.ʁɛ/ vs.courais 'ran'/ku.ʁɛ/; or the indicative from the subjunctive:croyons 'we believe'/kʁwa.jɔ̃/ vs.croyions 'we believed'/kʁwaj.jɔ̃/.
InAncient Greek, consonant length was distinctive, e.g.,μέλω[mélɔː] 'I am of interest' vs.μέλλω[mélːɔː] 'I am going to'. The distinction has been lost in thestandard and most othervarieties, with the exception ofCypriot (where it might carry over from Ancient Greek or arise from a number of synchronic anddiachronic assimilatory processes, or even spontaneously), some varieties of the southeastern Aegean, andItaly.
Gemination is common in bothHindi andUrdu. It does not occur after long vowels and is found in words of both Indic and Arabic origin, but not in those of Persian origin. In Urdu, gemination is represented by theShadda diacritic, which is usually omitted from writings, and mainly written to clear ambiguity. In Hindi, gemination is represented by doubling the geminated consonant, enjoined with theVirama diacritic.
| Transliteration | Hindi | Urdu | Meaning | Etymology |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pattā | पत्ता | پَتَّہ | 'leaf' | Sanskrit |
| abbā | अब्बा | اَبّا | 'father' | Arabic |
| dajjāl | दज्जाल | دَجّال | 'anti-christ' | |
| ḍabbā | डब्बा | ڈَبَّہ | 'box' | Sanskrit |
| jannat | जन्नत | جَنَّت | 'heaven' | Arabic |
| gaddā | गद्दा | گَدّا | 'mattress' | Sanskrit |
Gemination of aspirated consonants in Hindi are formed by combining the corresponding non-aspirated consonant followed by its aspirated counterpart. In vocalised Urdu, theshadda is placed on the unaspirated consonant followed by theshort vowel diacritic, followed by thedo-cashmī hē, which aspirates the preceding consonant. There are few examples where an aspirated consonant is truly doubled.
| Transliteration | Hindi | Urdu | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| pat.thar | पत्थर | پَتَّھر | 'stone' |
| kat.thā | कत्था | کَتَّھا | brown spread onpān |
| gad.dhā | गड्ढा | گڑھا | 'pit' |
| mak.khī | मक्खी | مَکِّھی | 'fly' |
Italian is notable among theRomance languages for its extensive geminated consonants. InStandard Italian, word-internal geminates are usually written with two consonants, and geminates are distinctive.[15] For example,bevve, meaning 'he/she drank', is phonemically/ˈbevve/ and pronounced[ˈbevːe], whilebeve ('he/she drinks/is drinking') is/ˈbeve/, pronounced[ˈbeːve]. Tonic syllables arebimoraic and are therefore composed of either a long vowel in an open syllable (as inbeve) or a short vowel in a closed syllable (as inbevve). In varieties with post-vocalicweakening of some consonants (e.g./raˈdʒone/ →[raˈʒoːne] 'reason'), geminates are not affected (/ˈmaddʒo/ →[ˈmad͡ʒːo] 'May').
Double or long consonants occur not only within words but also at word boundaries, and they are then pronounced but not necessarily written:chi +sa =chissà ('who knows')[kisˈsa] andvado a casa ('I am going home')[ˈvaːdoakˈkaːsa]. All consonants except/z/ can be geminated. This word-initial gemination is triggered either lexically by the item preceding the lengthening consonant (e.g. by prepositiona 'to, at' in[akˈkaːsa]a casa 'homeward' but not by definite articlela in[laˈkaːsa]la casa 'the house'), or by any word-final stressed vowel ([parˈlɔffranˈtʃeːze]parlò francese 's/he spoke French' but [ˈparlofranˈtʃeːze]parlo francese 'I speak French').
InLatin, consonant length was distinctive, as inanus 'old woman' vs.annus 'year'.Vowel length was also distinctive in Latin until about the fourth century, and was often reflected in the orthography with anapex. Geminates inherited from Latin still exist inItalian, in which[ˈanno]anno and[ˈaːno]ano contrast with regard to/nn/ and/n/ as in Latin. It has been almost completely lost inFrench and completely inRomanian. InWest Iberian languages, former Latin geminate consonants often evolved to new phonemes, including some instances ofnasal vowels inPortuguese and OldGalician as well as most cases of/ɲ/ and/ʎ/ in Spanish, but with the possible exception of [r] and [rː] in Spanish (caro 'expensive',carro 'car';pero 'but, however',perro 'dog') phonetic length of consonants and vowels is no longer distinctive.
InNepali, all consonants have geminate counterparts except for/w,j,ɦ/. Geminates occur only medially.[16] Examples:
InNorwegian, gemination is indicated in writing by double consonants. Gemination often differentiates between unrelated words. As in Italian, Norwegian uses short vowels before doubled consonants and long vowels before single consonants. There are qualitative differences between short and long vowels:
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A specific feature ofPolish is the almost exclusive occurrence of true gemination. Doubled letters are pronounced with rearticulation as two separate sounds with short pause, this applies to both consonants and vowels. However, it is also possible to pronounce geminates as single sounds if this does not change the meaning. Geminates are typical 1,5-3 times longer than single tones.[17] Rearticutated geminates they have the same length as single. Vowels before or after geminates do not differ in length from typical ones.[18]
Examples:
Consonant length is distinctive and sometimes is necessary to distinguish words:
Double consonants are common on morpheme borders where the initial or final sound of the suffix is the same as the final or initial sound of the stem (depending on the position of the suffix), afterdevoicing. Examples:
Punjabi is written in two scripts, namely,Gurmukhi andShahmukhi. Both scripts indicate gemination through the uses of diacritics. In Gurmukhi the diacritic is called theáddak which is writtenbefore the geminated consonant and is mandatory. In contrast, theshadda, which is used to represent gemination in theShahmukhi script, is not necessarily written, retaining the tradition of the originalArabic script andPersian language, where diacritics are usually omitted from writing, except to clear ambiguity, and is writtenabove the geminated consonant. In the cases ofaspirated consonants in theShahmukhi script, theshadda remains on the consonant, not on thedo-cashmī he.
Gemination is specially characteristic of Punjabi compared to other Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi-Urdu, where instead of the presence of consonant lengthening, the preceding vowel tends to be lengthened. Consonant length is distinctive in Punjabi, for example:
| Singleton | Geminated | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | Gurmukhi | Shahmukhi | Transliteration | Meaning | IPA | Gurmukhi | Shahmukhi | Transliteration | Meaning |
| /d̪əsᵊ/ | ਦਸ | دَس | das | 'ten' | /d̪əsːə/ | ਦੱਸ | دَسّ | dass | 'tell' (imperative) |
| /pət̪a/ | ਪਤਾ | پَتَہ | patā/patah[19] | 'aware of something' | /pət̪ːa/ | ਪੱਤਾ | پَتَّہ | pattā/pattah[19] | 'leaf' |
| /sət̪ᵊ/ | ਸਤ | سَت | sat | 'truth' (liturgical) | /sət̪ːə/ | ਸੱਤ | سَتّ | satt | 'seven' |
| /kəlɑː/ | ਕਲਾ | کَلا | kalā | 'art' | /kəlːa/ | ਕੱਲਾ | کَلّا | kallā | 'alone' |
InRussian, consonant length (indicated with two letters, as inванна[ˈvannə] 'bathtub') may occur in several situations.
Minimal pairs (orchronemes) exist, such asподержать[pədʲɪrˈʐatʲ] 'to hold' vsподдержать[pədʲːɪrˈʐatʲ] 'to support', and their conjugations, orдлина[dlʲɪˈna] 'length' vsдлинна[dlʲɪˈnːa] 'long' adj. f.
There are phonetic geminate consonants in Caribbean Spanish due to the assimilation of /l/ and /ɾ/ in syllabic coda to the following consonant.[21] Examples of Cuban Spanish:
| /l/ or /r/ + /f/ | → | [ff] | a[ff]iler, hue[ff]ano | (Sp.alfiler,huérfano) |
| /l/ or /r/ + /h/ | → | [ɦh] | ana[ɦh]ésico, vi[ɦh]en | (Sp.analgésico,virgen) |
| /l/ or /r/ + /b/ | → | [bb] | si[bb]a, cu[bb]a | (Sp.silba orsirva,curva) |
| /l/ or /r/ + /d/ | → | [dd] | ce[dd]a, acue[dd]o | (Sp.celda orcerda,acuerdo) |
| /l/ or /r/ + /g/ | → | [gg] | pu[gg]a, la[gg]a | (Sp.pulga orpurga,larga) |
| /l/ or /r/ + /m/ | → | [mm] | ca[mm]a, a[mm]a | (Sp.calma,alma orarma) |
| /l/ or /r/ + /n/ | → | [nn] | pie[nn]a, ba[nn]eario | (Sp.pierna,balneario) |
| /l/ or /r/ + /l/ | → | [ll] | bu[ll]a, cha[ll]a | (Sp.burla,charla) |
Luganda (aBantu language) is unusual in that gemination can occur word-initially, as well as word-medially. For example,kkapa/kːapa/ 'cat',/ɟːaɟːa/jjajja 'grandfather' and/ɲːabo/nnyabo 'madam' all begin with geminate consonants.
There are three consonants that cannot be geminated:/j/,/w/ and/l/. Whenevermorphological rules would geminate these consonants,/j/ and/w/ are prefixed with/ɡ/, and/l/ changes to/d/. For example:
InJapanese, consonant length is distinctive (as is vowel length). Gemination in thesyllabary is represented with thesokuon, a smalltsu:[22]っ forhiragana in native words andッ forkatakana in foreign words. For example,来た (きた,kita) means 'came; arrived', while切った (きった,kitta) means 'cut; sliced'. With the influx ofgairaigo ('foreign words') into Modern Japanese,voiced consonants have become able to geminate as well:[23]バグ (bagu) means '(computer) bug', andバッグ (baggu) means 'bag'. Distinction betweenvoiceless gemination andvoiced gemination is visible in pairs of words such asキット (kitto, meaning 'kit') andキッド (kiddo, meaning 'kid'). In addition, in some variants of colloquial Modern Japanese, gemination may be applied to some adjectives and adverbs (regardless of voicing) in order to add emphasis:すごい (sugoi, 'amazing') contrasts withすっごい (suggoi, 'really amazing');思い切り (おもいきり,omoikiri, 'with all one's strength') contrasts with思いっ切り (おもいっきり,omoikkiri, 'really with all one's strength').
InTurkish gemination is indicated by two identical letters as in most languages that have phonemic gemination.
Loanwords originally ending with a phonemic geminatedconsonant are always written and pronounced without the ending gemination as in Arabic.
Although gemination is resurrected when the word takes a suffix.
Gemination also occurs when asuffix starting with a consonant comes after a word that ends with the same consonant.
InMalayalam, compounding is phonologically conditioned[25] called assandhi and gemination occurs at word boundaries. Gemination sandhi is calleddvitva sandhi or 'doubling sandhi'.
Consider following example:
Gemination also occurs in a single morpheme likeകള്ളം (kaḷḷaṁ) which has a different meaning fromകളം (kaḷaṁ).
In Tamil, "otru" can occur when two words combine in a certain meaning. This otru is generally one ofக்/k/, ச்/t͡ʃ/, த்/t̪/ and ப்/p/, and occurs when one of these four consonants is the first letter of the second word. For example:
Gemination also occurs in nouns that end inடுṭu andறுṟu when they are part of a grammatical case. For example:
Gemination also occurs in a single morpheme likeகள்ளம் (kaḷḷaṁ) which has a different meaning fromகளம் (kaḷaṁ). More examples where words without and with gemination consonants have different meanings:
ManySámi languages have gemination as a phonetic feature. TheProto-Sami language had as many as four different lengths, although there is only one living language where this is attested: certains dialect ofUme Sámi. Most varieties have merged them to two or three contrastive degrees of length.
Estonian has three phonemic lengths; however, the third length is asuprasegmental feature, which is as much tonal patterning as a length distinction. It is traceable toallophony caused by now-deleted suffixes, for example half-longlinna < *linnan 'of the city' vs. overlonglinna < *linnaan < *linnahen 'to the city'.
Consonant length is phonemic inFinnish, for exampletakka[ˈtɑkːɑ] ('fireplace', transcribed with the length sign[ː] or with a doubled letter[ˈtɑkkɑ]) andtaka[ˈtɑkɑ] ('back'). Consonant gemination occurs with simple consonants (hakaa :hakkaa) and between syllables in the pattern (consonant)-vowel-sonorant-stop-stop-vowel (palkka) but not generally in codas or with longer syllables. (This occurs inSami languages and in the Finnish nameJouhkki, which is of Sami origin.)Sandhi often produces geminates.
Both consonant and vowel gemination are phonemic, and both occur independently, e.g.Mali,maali,malli,maallinen (Karelian surname, 'paint', 'model', and 'secular').
In Standard Finnish, consonant gemination of[h] exists only ininterjections, new loan words and in the playful wordhihhuli, with its origins in the 19th century, and derivatives of that word.
In many Finnish dialects there are also the following types of special gemination in connection with long vowels: the southwestern special gemination (lounaismurteiden erikoisgeminaatio), with lengthening of stops + shortening of long vowel, of the typeleipää <leippä; the common gemination (yleisgeminaatio), with lengthening of all consonants in short, stressed syllables, of the typeputoaa >puttoo and its extension (which is strongest in the northwestern Savonian dialects); the eastern dialectal special gemination (itämurteiden erikoisgeminaatio), which is the same as the common gemination but also applies to unstressed syllables and certain clusters, of the typeslehmiä >lehmmii andmaksetaan >maksettaan.
InWagiman, anindigenous Australian language, consonant length in stops is the primary phonetic feature that differentiatesfortis and lenis stops. Wagiman does not have phonetic voice. Word-initial and word-final stops never contrast for length.
Inwritten language, consonant length is often indicated by writing a consonant twice (ss,kk,pp, and so forth), but can also be indicated with a special symbol, such as theshadda in Arabic, thedagesh in Classical Hebrew, or thesokuon inJapanese.
In theInternational Phonetic Alphabet, long consonants are normally written using thetriangular colonː, e.g.penne[penːe] ('feathers', 'pens', also a kind of pasta), though doubled letters are also used (especially for underlyingphonemic forms, or in tone languages to facilitate diacritic marking).
Doubled orthographic consonants do not always indicate a long phonetic consonant.
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