Geminate latency in Djibouti Somali

Abstract

Abstract Our aim in this article is first to contribute to the documentation of the diatopic variation in the realization of Somali geminates, and second to determine whether Djibouti Somali exhibits geminate latency, on a par with Standard Somali (Barillot 2002, Barillot & Ségéral 2005). To this effect, we present the results of two production experiments that were conducted with one Djibouti Somali speaker. Section 1 examines the realization of the contrast /b, d, ɡ/ vs /bb, dd, ɡɡ/ in nouns in Djibouti Somali (Experiment 1-Nouns) in comparison with the previous experiment we conducted on Standard Somali (Bendjaballah & Le Gac 2021). Based on the results of this experiment, Section 2 addresses the question of geminate latency in Djibouti Somali. ‘Latent’ geminates are segments that are phonologically long but whose phonetic duration is short. We examine the acoustic realization of voiced singletons (/b, d, ɡ/), voiced geminates (/bb, dd, ɡɡ/) and voiceless geminates (/tt, kk/) in Djibouti Somali (Experiment 2-Verbs). Section 3 concludes the article, and argues in favour of an extension of geminate latency both in Standard Somali and in Djibouti Somali: geminate latency does not only concern the voiceless stops but also the voiced stops.