and gemination is lexically contrastive. The distinction between single and geminate consonants is attested in medial position as well as in absolute initial and final positions. 'say' 'those in question' 'earth, soil' 'loss' 'mouth' 'mother' 'hyena' 'he was quiet' 'pond, lake, oasis' 'brown buzzard, hawk' In addition to lexical geminates, Berber also has phonologically-derived and morphologically-derived geminates . Phonologically-derived geminates can surface by concatenation (e.g. 'give him two!') or by complete assimilation (e.g. 'he will touch you'). The morphological alternations include imperfective gemination, with some Berber verbs forming their imperfective stem by geminating one consonant in their perfective stem (e.g. 'go! PF', 'go! IMPF'), as well as quantity alternations between singular and plural forms (e.g. 'hand', 'hands'). Austronesian languages Austronesian languages in the Philippines, Micronesia, and Sulawesi are known to have geminate consonants. Kavalan The Formosan language Kavalan makes use of gemination to mark intensity, as in 'bad' vs. 'very bad'. Malay dialects Word-initial gemination occurs in various Malay dialects, particularly those found on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula such as Kelantan-Pattani Malay and Terengganu Malay. Gemination in these dialects of Malay occurs for various purposes such as: To form a shortened free variant of a word or phrase so that: > 'give' > 'to/at/from the shore' A replacement of reduplication for its various uses (e.g. to denote plural, to form a different word, etc.) in Standard Malay so that: > 'children' > 'kite' Tuvaluan The Polynesian language Tuvaluan allows for word-initial geminates, such as 'overcooked'. Indo-European languages English In English phonology, consonant length is not distinctive within root words. For instance, baggage is pronounced , not . However, phonetic gemination does occur marginally. Gemination is found across words and across morphemes when the last consonant in a given word and the first consonant in the following word are the same fricative, nasal, or stop. For instance: b: subbasement d: midday f: life force g: egg girl k: bookkeeper l: guileless m: calm man or roommate (in some dialects) or prime minister n: evenness p: lamppost (cf. lamb post, compost) r: fire road s: misspell or this saddle sh: fish shop t: cattail th: both thighs v: live voter z: pays zero With affricates, however, this does not occur. For instance: orange juice In most instances, the absence of this doubling does not affect the meaning, though it may confuse the listener momentarily. The following minimal pairs represent