Repeating the vowel sound of the mora that precedes gemination in songs

Question

I noticed that in songs, the vowel sounds of the morae that come before geminations are sometimes repeated.

For example, the first lyric line of “マジカルちょーだいっ” is sung as しらんぷりをしたあって where the line is actually しらんぷりをしたって.

Another example: in the second lyric line of “片道きゃっちぼーる”, the final あった sounds like ああった.

Also, at the beginning of the song “Gem Stone”, the repeated もってる is pronounced as もおってる.

My questions are:

1. Is this way of pronouncing gemination limited to songs, or are there instances where it's used elsewhere?

2. It seems to be limited to songs with children or children-like voices, so is it by chance the way Japanese children initially pronounce gemination?

Answer 1

It is common in songs, and it is not specific to children’s songs.

In the first case, the pitch of the lyric line is probably something like:

し(G) ら(G) ん(G) ぷ(G) り(G) を(F#) し(G) た(E) っ(F#) て(D)

but if you try to sing this as it is, there is a problem: gemination is not a sound but just a pause, and you cannot sing it with any pitch. Therefore, the vowel preceding the gemination is prolonged to fill the first part of the mora which should filled by the gemination:

し(G) ら(G) ん(G) ぷ(G) り(G) を(F#) し(G) た(E) ーっ(F#) て(D)

I did not check the other two videos, but I guess that they arose for the same reason.

Answer 2

Not hugely confident in this answer, but I'll try.

The gemination is supposed to be accomplished by a glottal stop in speech, and singing with a glottal stop is awkward at best and would sound strange even done properly. I imagine that the vowel lengthening is done to fill in a mora for rhythm/time purposes, and to indicate the omission. (That is, I know exactly what you're talking about, and in the examples I've heard, I don't even hear the っ in the sung lyric; it's entirely replaced by the vowel extension.)

It seems to me exactly comparable to the phenomenon in English songs of minimizing or omitting a final sibilant s sound (especially at the end of a musical phrase), which indeed is often combined with an extension of the preceding vowel.

Arguably it's different in Japanese because such vowel lengthening has much more potential to cause confusion with other words (as if there weren't enough homonyms in the language to begin with!) However, I think a certain amount of leeway has to be given here. After all, if I call after 雪【ゆき】ちゃん　with a hearty 「ゆう～き！」, nobody would think her name had suddenly changed to 勇気【ゆうき】, right? (I think I got the correct kanji...)

Answer 3

My first impression is that the only purpose of the extra mora is to create an additional mora for rhythmic reasons. Vowel lengthening does occur for expressive reasons, but I don't think any connection can be drawn to gemination. From a phonological perspective, I see no reason a vowel would lengthen before a geminate. I don't recall ever seeing such a process in any language.