Glides and gemination

For some linguists, rapid articulatory movement and short duration are essential attributes of vocalic glides (or ‘semivowels’). Others define them by structural properties, sometimes coupled with occurrence at a syllable margin. But brevity and rapid movement cannot be inherent properties of the class. A survey of 45 languages with geminates shows that although semivowels are among the less-favored candidates for gemination nonetheless a substantial number of languages, including Amharic, Northern Sierra Miwok, Marshallese, Leggbo and Tamazight, permit them to participate in singleton/geminate contrasts. Evidently geminates are inherently not brief or transitional. It might be thought that the geminate counterparts of singleton glides belong to a different phonetic or phonological category (e.g. fricatives). However, in several cases the clear phonological relatedness of the singleton and geminate semivowels can be demonstrated and in a final section the similarity between singleton and geminate semivowels in amplitude and formant frequencies in Trique is illustrated.