Utenti:Michiluzzu Scalisi/Gemination causing words

Gemination-causing Words

The gemination-causing words in the Unified Sicilian Language are words that cause a gemination, or reenforcement, of the pronunciation of the initial letter of the following word. There are many such words, but they are mostly words with one syllable or with a truncated ending. Among these gemination-causing words, described in the page above, are e, a, di, cu, ma, pi, chi, etc.

First Manner

The first mannner in which these words cause gemination is, they reenforce the initial consonant of the following word:

Example	Pronunciation	Significato italiano	Meaning in English
Chi dici?	/ki d'diʃɪ/	Che cosa dici?	What are you talking about?
a Palermu	/a ppɐ'lɛɾmʊ/	a Palermo	to Palermo
Chi beddu!	/ki b'bɛɖɖʊ/	Che bello!	How nice!

Second Manner

The second manner in which these words cause gemination is, they reenforce the initial consonants weak c and v so that they change to weak cc and b, although this change is not written.

Example	Pronunciation	Significato italiano	Meaning in English
e cincu	/ɛ t'tʃiŋkʊ/	e cinque	and five
A vui!	/a b'buɪ/	Te!	Hey you!

Examples

There is no certain way to determine which words cause gemination, but it may help to remember that the majority of these words are monosyllabic. Below are a few examples of such words::

Example	Significato italiano	Meaning in English
e	e	and
a	a	to, at
di	di, da	of, from, by
cu	con	with
ma	ma	but
pi	per	for, by, through
chi	che (cosa)	what