This paper presents an experimental investigation of durational variation in lexical and post-lexical geminate alveolar laterals, under different stress conditions, in Cypriot Greek. Lexical geminates are found to be longer than post-lexicals, and both geminates and non-geminates are longer in word-initial position. The durational distinction is robust in all conditions, but particularly for word-initial lexical geminates. Post-lexical geminates and word-initial lexical geminates are significantly longer when pre-stress. Word-initial geminates are longer when preceded by a word-final nasal (the condition for post-lexical gemination), thus creating a kind of ‘supergeminate’ consonant and indicating that word-final nasals are not deleted, as has previously been thought to be the case. Implications for the phonological analysis of Cypriot Greek geminates and the role of prosodic and phonotactic restrictions are considered.
BackgroundVowel lenition and its link with coarticulation have been the subject of extensive debate in the literature. The aims of the present paper are to demonstrate how vowel lenition and coarticulation are linked in Cypriot Greek (henceforth CG), to determine the nature of vowel lenition, and to illustrate how vowel lenition and coarticulation result from aerodynamic phenomena.Methodology/Principal FindingsEight speakers were recorded producing utterances ending in either /i/ or /u/. Acoustic measures such as V1F2 and stop duration were employed to determine whether lenition of the vowels results in coarticulation with the preceding consonant. Results show that there is extensive stop-vowel coarticulation in CG and that stop production is as variable as vowel production, with full vowels never co-occurring with canonical consonants, indicating the existence of two routes to lenition in CG.Conclusions/SignificanceThese findings suggest that lenition in the final syllable is a consequence of the supralaryngeal articulation coupled with a marginal glottal setting.
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