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R: Re: What is gemination? What are geminates?

From:Mangiat <mangiat@...>
Date:Monday, November 6, 2000, 14:44
Kou 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, voilà). >
Finnish does it as well. Italian has really a great bulk of couplets: ameremo/ameremmo (we'll love/ we'd love). The problem is that in Italian gemination has influence also on the quality of the previous vowel: eco /eko/ ecco /Ekko/; ameremo /ame'remo/ ameremmo /amerEmmo/. A good exemple would be mora /mOra/ (a fruit) morra /mOrra/ (a game). Luca