Re: What is gemination? What are geminates?

Kristian Jensen wrote:

>DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
>
>>From: "Kristian Jensen"
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>>I didn't know this. Does this mean the Japanese and Italian examples are
>>long consonants and not geminates?
I too was unaware of this distinction, though it seems reasonable
enough.....
For conlang purposes, it would be possible to link gemination with stress,
either
  ...V[stressed]CV ...> V[str]C:V...   or  ...VCV[str]... >  ...VC:V[str]...
Kash does the first.  IIRC there are natlang cases of both.

>The only one I know
>is Pattani Malay spoken in southern Thailand with long consonants occuring
in
>syllable-initial position; [bulE] "moon" vs [b:ulE] "months". But I'm sure
>there are more out there, also with a hypothetical contrast like /eb/ vs
/ebb/.>

Interesting ex.   Any idea how [b:ulE] is pronounced?  Not easy to produce a
voiced gem. stop without some kind of voiced onset, [@...] or maybe [m...];
or possibly preglottalization?    I'd be willing to bet this plural form
originated as a reduplicated form.... bVbulE.   (First thought was, this is
*bulan with an odd, but not impossible, sound change; is [-an] > E seen
elsewhere?   There's also *bulaj (= US usage *bulay) 'white, pale', much
easier phonologically.

Korean, in Roman transcription, has pp, tt et al. in initial position (as
well as medial), but the pronunciation isn't clear to me.