Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of Geminate Timing

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

 

1.1 Overview of the topic

This dissertation investigates the timing properties of geminate consonants from the point of view of the relationship between phonology and phonetics, using stops in Bernese (a dialect of Swiss German), Levantine Arabic, Hungarian and Madurese (an Austronesian language of Indonesia) as case studies. From a purely phonetic perspective, geminates can be described as long consonants, although the degree to which they are longer than their singleton counterparts varies widely from language to language. Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996: 91–92), for example, report from their cross-linguistic survey that, depending on the language, geminates are on average between one-and-a-half and three times as long ...