Cypriot Greek and the Phonetics and Phonology of Geminates

This paper reports on how the acoustic characteristics and phonological patterning of

Cypriot Greek geminates bear on the phonological representation of geminates, and by

extension on the representation of weight and quantity more generally. Specifically,

acoustic data suggest that the Cypriot geminates are ambisyllabic and nearly twice as long

as single consonants; yet they neither add weight to the syllable they form the coda of, nor

do they shorten the duration of the preceding vowel, as would be expected of moraic codas.

On the other hand, the Cypriot geminates cannot be considered clusters of identical

consonants, since phonological alternations affect them as a unit. Thus the phonetics and

phonology of the Cypriot geminates show that they are “true” geminates yet they are nonmoraic.

These findings suggest that moraic structure cannot adequately represent both

weight and quantity; rather, both a moraic and a skeletal tier are needed to represent weight

and quantity respectively.