The research presented in this paper provides evidence toward the existence of geminates in Cypriot Greek (hereinafter, CyG). Toward this end, statistical analysis supports significant durational differences in closure duration, the cross-linguistic correlate to gemination. However, since the language maintains an audible distinction between the two phonemic categories and since closure duration cannot be measured in utterance initial environments, another/alternative correlate is necessary. Contrary to previous studies [2] and [7] this paper argues, supported by highly significant durational differences, that VOT is the primary correlate to gemination for CyG geminate plosives, because this correlate
is available utterance initially. Preliminary statistical analysis suggests an effect of the vowel following the target segment, a fact that could facilitate in resolving the phonological representation of utterance initial geminates.
Cite as: Christodoulou, C. (2007) Phonetic geminates in cypriot greek: the case of voiceless plosives. Proc. Interspeech 2007, 1014-1017, doi: 10.21437/Interspeech.2007-356
@inproceedings{christodoulou07_interspeech,
author={Christiana Christodoulou},
title={{Phonetic geminates in cypriot greek: the case of voiceless plosives}},
year=2007,
booktitle={Proc. Interspeech 2007},
pages={1014--1017},
doi={10.21437/Interspeech.2007-356}
}