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From: alderson@netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Gemination (was Re: Voiceless L)
In-Reply-To: coby@euler.Berkeley.EDU's message of 5 Jul 1995 15:26:51 GMT
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In article <3teavr$fbe@agate.berkeley.edu> coby@euler.Berkeley.EDU
(Coby (Jacob) Lubliner) writes:

>I always thought the term "geminate" referred to spelling not pronunciation.
>In Catalan, geminate L ("ela geminada") describes two Ls separated by a
>centered dot, pronounced in theory [ll] but in practice [l], as distinct from
>two Ls not so separated, pronounced [lj] or [j].

In phonetic/phonological parlance, a geminate consonant is one which is (at
least perceptually) twice as long as the homorganic non-geminate.  There are
languages in which this is phonologically salient.
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_
