Re: What is gemination? What are geminates?

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, voilà).

Kou