The present study examines possible temporal effects of the word-initial geminate consonant contrast in Kelantan Malay (KM) beyond the duration of the target consonant itself. We are interested in identifying any duration interactions with following vowels that could potentially enhance the acoustic salience of geminate consonants, in particular word-initial voiceless geminate stops. Results indicate that postconsonantal vowel duration can vary as a function of preceding consonant length and according to prosodic context. This is especially the case for post-consonantal low central vowels in utterance-medial position in which vowel duration is significantly shorter following geminate stops. Although the effect was not consistent across all speakers, the results agree with findings from other languages in that durational effects of geminate timing extend to adjacent segments as well as to much larger stretches of utterance.

Index Terms: geminate, duration, vowel quantity, Malay