Gemination

In phonetics, gemination is when a spoken consonant is "doubled", so that it is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a "single" consonant. The term comes from the word geminus, Latin for "twin".

Related Topics:
Phonetics - Consonant - Latin

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Gemination is distinctive in certain languages, for instance Italian, Japanese, Arabic, Finnish. Most languages don't have distinctive geminates (like English). Estonian has three phonemic lengths; however, the third length is a suprasegmental feature, which is as much tonal patterning as a length distinction. It is traceable to allophony caused by now-deleted suffixes, for example half-long linna < *linnan "of the city" vs. overlong linna < *linnahan "to the city".

Related Topics:
Italian - Japanese - Arabic - Finnish - English - Estonian

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