Jordanian Arabic Final Geminates: An Experimental Clinical Phonetic Study
An experimental study was carried out to investigate word-final geminates in Jordanian Arabic. Monosyllabic singleton and geminate minimal pairs (CVC and CVCC) were considered to answer the three main questions of the study: Does gemination occur word-finally in Jordanian Arabic? Is there a temporal compensatory relationship between the vowels preceding geminate/singleton consonants? Are these differences contrastive? Eighteen participants produced 324 tokens with Ira., n, 1 and m:, n:, 1:/ occurring word-finally
Spectrographic and videofluoroscopic analyses show that final geminates are permissible in Jordanian Arabic. The temporal compensation maintained with the preceding vowel and the tension in articulating the geminates enhance perceptuality boundaries and maintain phonemicity.
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