Gemination in Pashto

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to analyze gemination in Pashto. For this purpose, first, data was collected generally from elder native speakers who speak the Yousafzai dialect. The collected data then was verified and discussed several times with elders and experts. Later on, a list of five words was generated and presented to native speakers in Pashto script with English translation. The data was recorded using Zoom H5 and analyzed with the help of Praat. During the acoustic analysis, the data was segmented and found that geminated segments carry twice duration in comparison to their singleton segments. The results revealed that the word /χkar/ means ‘horn’ and it has a voiceless velar /k/ that has 13ms, and the same sound has 22ms in the word /ra:χkkal/. The later carries the feature of gemination. Similarly, the words ‘sammla’ and ‘mla’ were recorded and acoustically analyzed. The results showed that the segment /m/ has 8ms in /mla/ and 15ms in /sammla/ that has got twice duration in later. Furthermore, among phonemes, the most frequently occurring phonemes carrying gemination are nasal, dental, alveolar, and velar.