language of geminates

from:
Peter Schrijver
Lost Languages in Northern Europe
in
Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European:
Linguistic and Archaeological Considerations
"
In the last decade, some progress has been achieved in the
identification of non-Indo-European substratum languages in
Middle and Northern Europe.
"
1)...
2)...
3) The language of geminates

"
A highly characteristic feature of words deriving from this
language [the language of geminates] is the variation of the
final root consonant, which may be single or double, voiced or
voiceless, and prenasalized.
"


Sergei Starostin:
Nostratic and Sino-Caucasian
in
Vitaly Shevoroshkin (ed.)
Explorations in Language Macrofamilies
"
It appears now that Proto-NC [North Caucasian] had no oppositon
between voiced and tense voiceless stops (k~-g, *t~-detc), as we
originally thought ... Now the so-called geminates in Proto-NC
(eg. *cc, ...) appear to have had a specific distribution: within
one root there could be combined only either 'geminated' consonants
(eg. *qqaqqa "seed, grain"), the only obligatory exception
being the roots with an inlauting sonant (eg. *cwarggwV "weasel,
martin", not *ccwarggwV). Thus it is possible to regard Proto-NC
'geminates' as allophones of simple (non-geminated) consonants
arising under special conditions (probably prosodic, something
like 'tense voice').
"

It would appear that Proto-NC (or Pre-Proto-NC?) is Schrijver's
'language of geminates'

Torsten