Three experiments in the perception of geminate conso- nants in arabic. Language and Speech

Synthetic stimuli were empioyed to investigate duration as a cue factor in the discrimination of single versus geminate consonants in Arabic. Contrasts in three phonetic classes were explored, stops, nasals, and spirants. Clear identification boundaries were found, though not uniformly clear, giving an indication of the degree of exclusivity of duration as the determining CUP factor. If this interpretation is correct, then it is surprising that duration appears to be a more powerful cue in the case of nasals than stops. A physiological ba & for this development is suggested. The evidence indicates that the structural status of gemination influences decisively the sharpness of discrimination. As part of an extensive series of teSts investigating the acoustic/perceptual structure of modern ' spoken Arabic, three tests were made with the object of investigating the factor of duration in the perception of geminate consonants. In the structure of Arabic, gemination is a frequent process in the systems of derivation and infiecdon. Thz mechanisms of discrimination between single and geminate consonants, for example, are therefore of considerable interest