Talk:Gemination

Untitled
Italian is mentioned, but no example. I'm not familiar with Italian. Could anyone give an example?
 * Example of what?--47.32.20.133 (talk) 17:36, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

It seems Japanese has vowel gemination. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Infofarmer (talk • contribs) 10:47, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Vowel gemination is an oxymoron. The term gemination only applies to consonants. Rikat (talk) 19:37, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The article asserts that geminates are 1.5 to 2 X longer than singletons, but I believe the range of variation from language to language is larger than that. Here is a quote from William Ham, Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of Geminate Timing, Routledge, 2001 ISBN 0415937604: From a purely phonetic perspective, geminates can be described as long consonants, although the degree to which they are longer than their singleton counterparts varies widely from language to language. Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996: 91-92), for example, report from their cross-linguistic survey that, depending on the language, geminates are on average between one-and-a-half and three times as long as singletons in careful speech. Rikat (talk) 19:43, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Russian
Russian does not distinguish between long and short consonants (or vowels, for that matter) in speech, but only in writing. I can say that as a native speaker. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.24.136.83 (talk) 13:26, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Disregard the comment above. I am native speaker too and definitely distinguish between long and short consonant in Russian. Though, it may drop in fast or children-like speech. All scientists recognize it.90.188.77.45 (talk) 20:56, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Russian phonology says that only and  are actually geminated.  It may depend on dialect, though whatever the case may be it's definitely true that many instances of written double consonants don't indicate actual gemination in speech.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  00:01, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Polish
Info about gemination in Polish is false. While polish language has geminates (double consonants) it is not a gemination. It should be always pronounced as two separate (repeated) consonats. Long vovels and long consonants does not exist in Polish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.5.23.100 (talk) 20:09, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

"rodziny – 'families'; ssaki - 'mammals', rodzinny – adjective of 'family'" - that ssaki part seems to be irrelevant or corrupted. Anyone? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.181.173.242 (talk) 14:25, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

The information on Polish is false, in such or another way. Whether they are geminates or not is disputable. Indeed, there is a possiblitity to pronounce them as a one long vowel, even if some prescriptive biased linguists call it incorrect. However, it is not the only possible way, and the pronunciation as two separated consonants is also possible, especially in slow speech. Anyway, the statement "it occurs in words of more than one morpheme, where the final morpheme of the first part is the same as the initial morpheme of the second" is completely false!!! There is no difference in treating double consonants both on the morpheme border and within the same morpheme. Rodzinny, wwozić, zzuć, greccy, lekki, jakkolwiek, najjaśniejszy are examples of the first type. Note double consonants in the initial position. It is possible because prefixes "w" and "z" contain only one consonant. But there are also examples of double consonants not on morpheme borders, like ssaki (which is cited and is not in accordance with the description!), czczy "vane" (: czy "whether"), dżdżownica "earthworm", dżdżysty "rainy (bookish)" (all word-initially), and also wanna "bathtub", Anna "Anna", Mekka, kwagga, kappa, Jaffa, gamma "Greek letter" (: gama "music scale"), Budda, Jagiełło, Allah, horror, Aszszur. See http://grzegorj.w.interia.pl/popraw/tidiri.html for more.

31.11.242.199 (talk) 19:54, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Mistake
The example of Japanese is exactly contrary - "came" = kitta, "cut (past)" = kita —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.84.134.174 (talk) 12:16, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I didn't change anything, but the article is currently correct. kuru 'come' is an irregular verb with past tense kita 'came'. kiru 'slice' is a godan verb that could be mistaken as ichidan with past tense kitta 'sliced'. Wikky Horse (talk) 17:53, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

English gemination
Wolf Leslau used to give the word 'penknife' as a clear case of in-word gemination in English.Kdammers (talk) 01:24, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

“Orange juice” is listed as an example of non-gemination, but the IPA transcription shows gemination, and that is the only pronunciation I know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.188.191.57 (talk) 13:29, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I pronounce it with . CodeCat (talk) 14:51, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

"With thanks" is pronounced using a voiced dental fricative (ð) followed immediately by an unvoiced one (θ). "Cloth thimbles" would be a better example of gemination. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.102.60.242 (talk) 20:39, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

"night train" versus "night rain"
This is wrong. "train" is pronounced as [t͡ʃɹeɪn] and is definitely different from "...t rain" [t ɹeɪn].--2.245.79.201 (talk) 18:34, 22 May 2014 (UTC)


 * You are claiming that train is pronounced as if it were spelled "chrain". I have never, ever, heard an English speaker pronounce the word this way.  These dictionaries all agree that the pronunciation is /treɪn/, in both American and British English:


 * Oxford Dictionaries: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/train
 * Merriam-Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/train
 * Cambridge Dictionary: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/train
 * MacMillan Dictionary: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/train_1
 * The Free Dictionary: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/train
 * dictionary.com: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/train?s=t


 * I am removing the "dubious" tag until someone can provide a source for this alternate pronunciation. CodeTalker (talk) 21:07, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Dictionaries only give phonemic transcriptions. I think phonetically the t is sometimes pronounced as ch by assimilation because r is postalveolar. Alveolar t sometimes becomes postalveolar ch before a postalveolar. — Eru·tuon 21:59, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, the problem is the cluster /tr/. It might not usually be "chrain", but it's close, and it certainly can be, and in no case would a native speaker of English be expected to pronounce /treɪn/, with or without night preceding, with [t] or [tʰ] in normal speech (for me, native Lower Midwestern, it's all but impossible; I can come very close with a "foreign accent", though: "I am from [ˈiːtali]. I would like to take a nigh[t] [t]rain, please."). A pair with simply /t#t/ and /t#/ (# signifying word boundary), both surrounded by vowels, illustrates more cleanly: that turn and that urn, for example. (Fussy detail: Worth noting, too, that /t#t/ and its phonetic realization exemplify geminates, but not a process of gemination.)--47.32.20.133 (talk) 18:27, 9 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Having analysed my own native English speech, I can confirm that the /t/ in "train" is much closer to [t͡ʃ] than [t], making it sound like "nigh-chrain". A better example for gemination in English is needed. Danielklein (talk) 23:37, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, that turn - that urn, ten nails - ten ales, this sin - this inn, some mice - some ice, big gate - Big Eight, five valleys - five alleys, his zone - his own, etc. One probably not to use in the article I heard on the radio years ago and have never forgotten: the speaker was talking about bus passes for handicapped people, meant to say handicap passes, but degeminated /-p#p-/ to simple [p]. Striking result.--47.32.20.133 (talk) 16:31, 14 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I am a native speaker of American English with a fairly generic General American accent, although GenAm isn't quite specific enough. For instance, I do not have the cot-caught merger, so words like not and naught are not homophones for me. I actually opened this Talk page because I wanted to say that I don't think that night train and night rain are a minimal pair in this manner, but the alternative I was going to suggest is no longer so convincing to me. When I first saw this pair in the article, I said to myself, "The difference isn't the length of the [t], it is that night rain has a normal [t] and night train has an aspirated T, so [tʰ]. And I think the length is also different, but if speaking fast, then the [t] versus [tʰ] should make the difference for the listener." I hadn't even considered that it might be a [t͡ʃ] sound, which is definitely a sound that I use every day, and it sounds similar to [tʰ]. The sound of [tʰ] and [t͡ʃ] is similar, but what I do with my tongue is rather different. [tʰ] is like a normal [t] with a far more audible pulse of air as my tongue breaks from the post-alveolar surface, or whichever upper surface it is touching. During [t͡ʃ] or [tʃ], my tongue is a different shape somewhat, it is not just the tip of my tongue touching the post-alveolar surface, my tongue is curled or rolled a little bit to make a channel for air to pass down the middle. But the sound is actually very similar, especially if recorded and played back. I feel like I am saying different things, but it doesn't sound like it when played back. I think [t] versus [tʰ] is the difference between top and stop (at the letter T, ignoring the S). Meanwhile, I definitely agree that "chrain" would have a [t͡ʃ] sound, but I can't think of a real English word that starts with "chr-" where the H is not silent (or more precisely, the H is superfluous because "cr-" would be pronounced the same, and the classic "ch" digraph sound is not triggered), so chronometer is not an example. I don't know that there is such an English word, look at all the words in Wiktionary starting with "chr-", they don't start with [t͡ʃ] or [tʃ] as far as I know:
 * Wiktionary: English lemmas starting with chr-, first page of many.
 * Notice that chrain actually does have an entry on Wiktionary, huh. In any event, I am not convinced that "chr" with a [t͡ʃ] or [tʃ] can occur at all if the preceding phoneme or phone is either a vowel or a word boundary. In night train, the preceding sound is the vowel of night, so it might as well be nigh train. If you want the preceding sound to be the [t] in night, then I think a better gloss for the [t͡ʃ] sound would be night shrain, it would not be night chrain or nigh chrain. Of course, if the preceding sound is not a vowel or word boundary, then you can have "chr" make this sound: punchrain. I would say that punchrain and pun train are not homophones. I'm not sure what's going on, but I don't like night train versus night rain. They definitely are not homophones, but I don't know what the difference actually is. Fluoborate (talk) 20:05, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Um?
"With affricates, however, this does not occur. For instance: orange juice [ˈɒrɨndʒ.dʒuːs]" The English section says "this does not occur" with affricates, but then shows an instance in which gemination does, in fact, occur with affricates. I'm confused. 69.34.174.2 (talk) 21:51, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Hmm, that's a good question. It's confusing, as you say. I think perhaps it's because gemination of an affricate is supposed to result in doubled stop portion, rather than the whole affricate being repeated. So, if orange juice had gemination, it would be pronounced as or  with the, the stop part of the affricate, doubled, instead of  where the whole affricate is repeated. So that might be why the article says affricates aren't geminated. — Eru·tuon 00:16, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

wordinhasprob
although several languages feature both independently (as in Arabic, Japanese, Finnish, and Estonian), or have interdependent vowel and consonant length (as in Norwegian and Swedish).81.11.230.198 (talk) 12:41, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Geminized stops seem to have nasals ie. [bː] vs /mb/
[bː] appears to be a /mb/ just as /tː/ appears to be /nt/ GamerGeekWiki (talk) 02:57, 12 February 2017 (UTC) - I could be articulating it wrong, but I doubt it. GamerGeekWiki (talk) 03:03, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Problem with Finnish example
The article mentions the Finnish word-final archiphonemic glottal stop, which lengthens the first consonant of the following word. The example given is: "otaʔ se" This looks wrong because the lengthening of the /s/ is not shown. Should it be: "otaʔ se" or something like that? Jan Arvid Götesson (talk) 10:33, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know Finnish well enough to vouch for the example, but it looks like a classic case of assimilation producing a geminate phonetic outcome: /ˈotaʔ se/ → [ˈotasːe]. If that's the case (and if phonemic /ʔ/ is accurate), it's useful as an example of one source of phonetic geminates in Finnish.--47.32.20.133 (talk) 17:04, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

consonant elongation, consonant lengthening
In 40 years of doing both synchronic and diachronic phonology, I don't recall ever encountering the term consonant elongation. I've changed it to consonant lengthening, which in my experience is standard terminology as a frequent alternative to gemination (or, phonetically, a specific type with regard to manner of articulation). If there are arguments in favor of preferring consonant elongation, please present them here.47.32.20.133 (talk) 13:43, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Two problems haunt this article: phonetics/phonology, geminate/gemination
Phonetics/phonology: It's not all that difficult to find languages in which geminates are underlying, don't surface phonetically long, but do surface as phonetically distinct from underlying non-geminates. (And, of course, phonologists will quibble about whether the underlying form really is a geminate, with evidence usually leaning in the direction of yes, it is.)

And, unless the topic is intended to be purely phonetic only...

Geminate/gemination: This is more serious to the basic purpose of the article in that the two are conflated at various points and readers can be left confused and/or misinformed. Basic example: the frequent pronunciation of English prime minister as [ˌpraɪˈmɪnɪstər] is a case of degemination /mm/ → [m], whereas [ˌpraɪmˈmɪnɪstər] is a straightforward projection /mm/ → [mː], not a case of anything (/mm/ or /m/) undergoing gemination. A geminate is a form, whether phonological or phonetic, whereas gemination is a process; a phonetic geminate may or may not be the result of (synchonic) gemination. (Vocalic correlates of the principle process/non-process would be raising in /e/ → [i], no raising in /i/ → [i].) A phonological geminate is a geminate, e.g. Italian /ˈfatto/. If that's pronounced [ˈfatːo], as it normally is, in what sense does gemination occur? None: phonological geminate /tt/ projects as phonetic geminate [tː]. Sticking with Italian, non-stress-conditioned RS does normally involve gemination: /a ˈkasa/ 'at home' and /la ˈkasa/ 'the house' normally surface with distinct realizations of /k/: [aˈkːaːsa], [laˈkaːsa] with no source for [kː] identifiable synchronically (other than noting that preposition a triggers RS). Gemination can occur diachronically, such as Latin /ˈfemina/ > Italian /ˈfemmina/; once the form is accepted as /ˈfemmina/, the pronunciation [ˈfemːina] with phonetic geminate no longer reflects a process of gemination (just as /i/ → [i] does not instantiate raising). There's no need to get deeply into the technical weeds for the article, but it should be possible to execute clarifications for a general readership not steeped in phonetics or phonology, and by doing so also reveal phenomena of interest to them. --47.32.20.133 (talk) 16:46, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Gemination in English
At present the article says that gemination is not phonemic in English because "there is no minimal pair in English that differs by gemination". I think that is misleading. I doubt that there is any pair of individual words or common phrases that differ only in presence or absence of gemination, but it is perfectly possible to have a pair of phrases where gemination is the only difference. For example, consider "Will Pat trick the driver?" and "Will Patrick the driver arrive soon?"I shall therefore remove the comment about there being no minimal pair, while leaving the statement that gemination is not phonemic. JBW (talk) 14:04, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

After writing the message above I read further into the article, and found that the article itself gives several examples of minimal pairs, such as "unnamed" [ʌnˈneɪmd] versus "unaimed" [ʌnˈeɪmd]. Therefore the statement I referred to is clearly unambiguously false, not merely potentially misleading. JBW (talk) 14:15, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Neapolitan
Neapolitan has no consonant length / gemination at words beginning. It occurs only when the word is preceded by a vowel, which always happens, since no words are pronounced without a preceding article or particle. It actually works mostly identically to spoken Italian with the plus of the strong presence of "schwa" in Neapolitan, which influences the following consonants as a vowel. The main distinctive feature, if compared to spoken Italian, is the irregularity of gemination at words beginning in Neapolitan, which occurs with o lot a small nuances, making a correct pronounce of the language difficult even for Italian speakers trying to learn it.

Ex: the house: a casa, pronounce a kasə The houses: e case, pronunce e k:kasə My phonetic transcription is surely erroneous, but it can give an idea.

I'm a Neapolitan native speaker. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.210.189.112 (talk) 10:05, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

roommate and prime minister vary with regard to phonetic length of /-m#m-/
It's misleading to not mention that roommate [ˈrum.meɪt] and prime minister [ˌpɻaɪmˈmɪnɪstəɹ] can be variable [V.mV] or [Vm.mV] for the same speaker. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 20:08, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Danish has gemination?
According to the lede, Danish has gemination, but I thought it didn't. My knowledge of the language is limited, but AFAIK the Old Norse geminates became singletons (and orthographic gemination remained as a way of disambiguating vowel sounds, as in English and German).

E.g. ON átta becomes Danish otte /ˈɔːtə/, [ˈɔːd̥ə], compared to Swedish åtta /²ɔtːa/

Five sets listed for Cuban Spanish are not geminates
The author of the article cited takes care to distinguish between geminates and partial assimilations. All of these are partial assimilations, not geminates:

/l/ or /r/ + /s/ 	> 	/d/ + /s/: 	[ds] 	fa[ds]a), du[ds]e 	(Sp. falsa or farsa, dulce)

/l/ or /r/ + /p/ 	> 	/d/ + /p/: 	[b˺p] 	cu[b˺p]a, cue[b˺p]o 	(Sp. culpa, cuerpo)

/l/ or /r/ + /t/ 	> 	/d/ + /t/: 	[d˺t] 	sue[d˺t]e, co[d˺t]a 	(Sp. suelte or suerte, corta)

/l/ or /r/ + /tʃ/ 	> 	/d/ + /tʃ/: [d˺tʃ] 	co[d˺tʃ]a, ma[d˺tʃ]arse (Sp. colcha or corcha, marcharse)

/l/ or /r/ + /k/ 	> 	/d/ + /k/: 	[g˺k] 	vo[g˺k]ar, ba[g˺k]o 	(Sp. volcar, barco)

There's a second problem in the entire list in that the author of the article cited has to indulge in more than just a bit of phonological jiggery-pokery to come up with the analysis that the liquid constituent of the cluster has restructured diachronically to /d/. Okay, perhaps, for the purposes of his article, but the two steps of first a restructuring to /d/, then /d/ assimilating partially or entirely at the phonetic level is not clarified at all here in Wikipedia, where the description above the list is phonetic: ".../l/ and /ɾ/ in syllabic coda are assimilated to the following consonant", with no mention of the intervening /l/ or /r/ > /d/. Given all this, a good cleanup is definitely in order. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 21:37, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

bevve
The article claims that bevve is pronounced [ˈbevːe] whereas beve is [ˈbeːve]. I don't think that's quite correct. I think the first syllable of bevve actually uses the "open" e ([ɛ]) so it should be [ˈbɛvːe]. To be sure, the passato remoto was rare in the part of Italy I was in so I'm not super-sure of this. --Trovatore (talk) 01:32, 23 January 2024 (UTC)