Re: What is gemination? What are geminates?

DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:

>From: "Robert Hailman"
>
>> The subject says it all. People have been talking about it all
>> willy-nilly, and I haven't understood much of it. Does anyone care to
>> explain?
>
>As I understand it, it's the doubling of a consonant sound as in the English
>"meanness" (/minnEs/)" or "bookcase" (/bUkkes/) (don't know how to express
>an offglide in Kirshenbaum), a kind of holding of the consonant sound for a
>beat, as opposed to the illogical "mean 'S'" (/minEs/) or "book ace"
>(/bUkes/). Some languages, like Japanese and Italian, use this as a phonemic
>distinction: Japanese "kata" (square) vs. "katta" (bought); Italian "eco"
>(echo) vs. "ecco" ((t)here it is, voil).
Douglas has it correct. But I'd like to add that there is also a
terminological distinction between consonant sounds that occur when
two identical consonant sounds are next to each other across a syllable
boundary, and consonant sounds that are long but within the same syllable.
The former is called a geminate, the latter is called a long or doubled
consonant.

-kristian- 8)