The acquisition of gemination in Lebanese-Arabic children

This is the first study on the acquisition of gemination in Arabic, a phonological aspect that is prominent in the adult phonology yet complex in terms of its implementation and interaction with the grammar. The study reports on the longitudinal development of five Lebanese children in the second year of life and enables the authors the trace the transition from phonetic to phonological acquisition in the child. An acoustic investigation of consonant duration in the children’s emerging lexicon shows very little distinction between short and long targets in the early stages, followed by rapid word learning and the beginnings of target-like durational patterns. However, the language-contact situation in Lebanon creates an interesting challenge for geminate acquisition; variable phonetic lengthening of medial consonants in French and English loan words in the input creates a fuzzy category which the children need to interpret alongside their unstable representations for Arabic.