Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of Geminate Timing

CHAPTER 5

Cross-Language Study: Acoustic Investigations

 

5.1 Introduction

This chapter reports the results of acoustic studies carried out for Levantine Arabic, Hungarian and Madurese (relevant phonological background is given for each in the previous chapter). In particular, the focus here will be on the timing properties of singleton and geminate stops in word-medial and word-final positions, and of the vowels which precede them. While a number of language-specific questions—many of which were previewed in Chapter 4—will arise as we proceed, our discussion of each language will follow the general format introduced in Chapter 3 for Bernese: We will first address stop closure duration and voicing, followed by VOT and burst duration, followed ...