15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-15) Barcelona, Spain August 3-9, 2003

The Production and Perception of Word-Initial Geminates in Cypriot Greek

Jennifer S. Muller

United States Department of Defense, USA

The production and perception of word-initial geminates and singleton consonants in Cypriot Greek are investigated. Evidence from word-medial segments indicates that increased duration is the primary acoustic feature for geminates. However, it is found that Voice Onset Time (VOT) serves as a secondary acoustic cue accompanying geminate production.
   This cue is crucial to absolute initial stops since their duration cannot be discerned. Results of a perception experiment indicate that listeners are capable of distinguishing initial geminates and singletons, suggesting that VOT is sufficiently salient to indicate segment length.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Muller, Jennifer S. (2003): "The production and perception of word-initial geminates in Cypriot Greek", In ICPhS-15, 1867-1870.