Rethinking Geminates, Long-Distance Geminates, and the OCP

Building on the analysis of long-distance geminates as reduplication, this article argues that the OCP may apply to identical consonants across an intervening vowel. This is adduced from the behavior of guttural consonants in Semitic. It is further argued that antigemination is not resistance to an OCP violation but avoidance of gemination; syncope between identical consonants avoids an OCP violation by creating a geminate. This entails that there is no surface representational distinction between true and fake geminates. Finally, cases of reduplication are examined in which the standard reduplicant is changed to avoid either gemination or an OCP violation.