Paper

A split-gesture, competitive, coupled oscillator model of syllable structure predicts the emergence of edge gemination and degemination

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Abstract

The phonological mechanisms responsible for the emergence of edge geminates in phonological processes like the Italian Raddoppiamento (Fono-)Sintattico (RS) are an open issue. Previous analyses of Italian treat gemination of (i) word initial consonants, (ii) morpheme-final consonants, and (iii) word final consonants as separate processes brought about by dedicated rule/constraints. We argue that these edge gemination processes result from the same, independently established principles. Through computational simulation of the split-gesture, competitive, coupled oscillator model of syllable structure of Articulatory Phonology, we show that increases in closure duration typical of geminates arise from changes to consonant/vowel couplings. Word initial gemination follows from coupling of a closure gesture to a preceding vowel across a word boundary. Word final gemination follows from coupling of a release gesture to a following vowel. In both cases, the posited structures reflect changes in syllabification hypothesized in previous work. The model simulation also predict different durations for resyllabified edge geminates and medial lexical geminates, in line with experimental findings on the topic. Changes to consonant/vowel couplings also account for the opposite effect: word initial degemination. Thus, the coupled oscillator model of Articulatory Phonology, originally developed to model intergestural timing, predicts the emergence of edge gemination/degemination.

Keywords: edge geminates, dynamical systems, coupled oscillators, articulatory phonology, raddoppiamento sintattico, initial geminates

How to Cite:

Burroni, F., (2022) “A split-gesture, competitive, coupled oscillator model of syllable structure predicts the emergence of edge gemination and degemination”, Society for Computation in Linguistics 5(1), 11-22. doi: https://doi.org/10.7275/wjq6-wm83