palatal lateral approximant is most often realised as a singleton or geminate lateral or a singleton or geminate fricative , and sometimes as a glide (cf. yeísmo). The circumstances under which all the different variants surface are not very well understood, but appear to be favoured in stressed syllables and word-finally, and before . identifies the following phonological and non-phonological influencing factors: stress, preceding vowel, following vowel, position inside word; and sex, education, region, and time spent living in Greece (where is standard). notes that speakers of some local varieties, notably that of Larnaca, "substitute" the geminate fricative for , but contests this, saying that, " is robustly present in the three urban areas of Lefkosia, Lemesos and Larnaka as well as the rural Kokinohoria region, especially among teenaged speakers ... the innovative pronunciation is not a feature of any local patois, but rather a supra-local feature." The palatal nasal is produced somewhat longer than other singleton nasals, though not as long as geminates. is similarly "rather long". The alveolar trill is the geminate counterpart of the tap . Palatalisation and glide hardening In analyses that posit a phonemic (but not phonetic) glide , palatals and postalveolars arise from (consonant–glide–vowel) clusters, namely: The glide is not assimilated, but hardens to an obstruent after and to after . At any rate, velar stops and fricatives are in complementary distribution with palatals and postalveolars before front vowels ; that is to say, broadly, are palatalised to either or ; to or ; and to . Geminates There is considerable disagreement on how to classify Cypriot Greek geminates, though they are now generally understood to be "geminates proper" (rather than clusters of identical phonemes or "fortis" consonants). Geminates are 1.5 to 2 times longer than singletons, depending, primarily, on position and stress. Geminates occur both word-initially and word-medially. Word-initial geminates tend to be somewhat longer. have found that "for stops, in particular, this lengthening affects both closure duration and VOT", but claim that stops contrast only in aspiration, and not duration. undertook a perceptual study with thirty native speakers of Cypriot Greek, and has found that both closure duration and (the duration and properties of) aspiration provide important cues in distinguishing between the two kinds of stops, but aspiration is slightly more significant. Assimilatory processes Word-final assimilates with succeeding consonants—other than stops and affricates—at word boundaries producing post-lexical geminates. Consequently, geminate voiced fricatives,