Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of Gemination in Libyan Arabic

This thesis investigates the phonetics and phonology of geminate consonants in Libyan Arabic (LA). In addition to lexically contrastive geminates ‘true geminates’, LA has two types of phonologically derived geminate: ‘fake geminates’, which are formed as a combination of two identical consonants at the juncture of a word or a morpheme, and ‘assimilatory geminates’, which are the result of total assimilation. This study examines the effect of the phonological status of a geminate on the phonetic realization to ascertain whether underlying differences are reflected in phonetic dissimilarity. In particular, it investigates two questions: what are the acoustic and articulatory differences between singletons and lexical geminates; and are there any acoustic or articulatory differences between the three types of geminates. To answer these questions, two phonetic studies were conducted: one acoustic and one articulatory (EPG). Trisyllabic minimal or near minimal utterances containing the sonorant sounds /l, m, n, r/ were considered. Native speakers of LA were recorded reading word-lists containing medial singleton and geminate consonants preceded by short and long vowels. The acoustic study investigated both durational and non-durational parameters. The articulatory study investigated spatial and spatio-temporal (dynamic) parameters. The results provide evidence that the singleton-geminate contrasts as well as the three geminate types are phonetically distinct from each other when considering both the acoustic and articulatory correlates together. The acoustic results confirm that the primary correlate which distinguishes singletons from geminates in LA is duration. The duration of the preceding vowels gives evidence in support of temporal compensation as one of the correlates of geminates. The comparison between the three types of geminates shows that they all display similar durational and non-durational values. However, the behaviour of short and long vowels preceding assimilatory geminates is suggestive and may contribute to the phonetic distinction between these geminates and the other geminate types. The articulatory results show that the singleton and geminate consonants in LA are different in their articulatory configurations. Fake geminates are also found to be distinct both spatially and dynamically from true and assimilatory geminates, which show similar articulatory patterns. The theoretical implications of these results for the general issue of geminate behavior are discussed.