REDUPLICATION

Form, FunctionDistribution

Carl Rubino

cr@hoje.com

Part I

FORM

Two categories considered

Full (root) Reduplication:

Tagalog intensive verbs:

mag-isip ‘to think’

mag-isip-isip ‘to ponder (seriously)’

Nez Perce lexical (Aoki 1963:43)

temul ‘hail’ vs. temulté:mul ‘sleet’

Partial Reduplication

From lengthening/gemination to nearly full root:

Pangasinan (Austronesian, Philippines) CV-: toó ‘man’ > totóo CV- ‘people’; amígo ‘friend’

-CV- amimígo ‘friends’;

CVC- báley ‘town’ > CVC- balbáley ‘towns’

C1V- plato ‘plate’ > C1V- papláto ‘plates’

CVCV- manók ‘chicken’ CVCV- > manómanók ‘chickens’

Ce- duég ‘carabao’ > Ce- deréweg ‘carabaos’. (Rubino 2001)

Reduplicative Productivity

Historical Loss, Ancient > Modern Greek

Ce- perfect, γé-γrapha ‘have written’Modern periphrasitc equivalent éxo γrápsi (have + participial

form).’

Retained forms in learned words: δe-δo-mena (Ce-give-mediopassive) ‘data’

γe-γon-os (Ce-become/happen-perfect) ‘event.’

Reduplicative Productivity (cont.)

Nonproductive reduplicative borrowing in Greek

Tsir-tsiplakis ‘buck naked’

Cf. Turkish bem-beyaz ‘very white’

Brian Joseph, p.c.

Reduplicative Productivity (cont.)

Indonesian Ce- vs. Full

tua ‘old’ tetua ‘elders’tangga ‘ladder tetangga ‘neighbor’laki ‘male, husband’ lelaki ‘man’luhur ‘noble’ leluhur ‘ancestor’

Full (Lexicalized + Inflectional)mata ‘eye’ matamata ‘spy’langit ‘sky’ langitlangit ‘ceiling’gula ‘sugar’ gulagula ‘sweets’

Universal?

Languages that productively employ partial reduplication usually also employ full reduplication. (Moravcsik 1978:328)

Squamish (Kuipers 1967):total: 'play hide and seek' from the rootpartial: -'old people'

from the singular -

What part of base reduplicated?

Frequency of affix type: Prefixes > Suffixes > Infixes

Hunzib initial (N. Caucasian) CV(C) reduplication

bat’iyab ‘different’ bat’bat’iyab ‘very different’

muáL ‘after’ mu.muáL ‘much later’

(Van den Berg 1995)

Medial Reduplication

Choctaw (Muskogean) medial CV reduplication (Kimball 1988:440)

tonoli ‘to roll’

tononoli ‘to roll back and forth’

binili ‘to sit’

bininili ‘to rise up and sit down’

Final Reduplication

Paumarí (Arawakan)

Final disyllabic reduplication (iterative):

a-odora-dora-bakhia-loamani-hi

1pl-gather.up-REDUP-frequently-really-theme ‘we keep gathering them’

(Chapman et al 1991)

Characteristics of Reduplicated Material

• Number of phonemes in copy• Number of syllables• Number of repeated morae

e.g. Ngiyambaa (Australian), first syllable + light second (not including final vowel lengthening or a coda consonant) (Donaldson 1980):

magu-magu: ‘around one,’dhala-dhalarbi-ya (REDUP-shine-PRS) ‘to be pretty

shiny’

Triplication

Number of times reduplicand is repeated

Mokilese (Harrison 1973):

roar ‘give a shudder’

roarroar ‘be shuddering’

roarroarroar ‘continue to shudder’

Formal nature of Reduplicand

Simple – copy does not differ from base

Complex – mismatch, extra material

Automatic – (in conjunction with other affix)

Complex Reduplication

Mangarayi Plurals (Australian, Merlan 1982)

Consonant of the second syllable + the vowel of the first syllable are copied to form a new second syllable in the derived word.

walima ‘young person’ > walalima ‘young people’;yirag ‘father’ > yirirag-ji ‘father and children’

Complex Reduplication (cont.)

• Tuvan Diminutives (Harrison 2001)

Copy of the entire base; s replaces initial C in reduplicand. For bases that are vowel-initial, an onset [s] is added to the reduplicand.

aar ‘heavy’ > aar-saar ‘heavy:diminutive’uuruk-suuruk ‘simultaneously’

SEE ALSO ECHO CONTRUCTIONS

Complex Reduplication (cont.)

Nias (Austronesian)

Voicing with disyllabic reduplication:

a-fusi ‘white’

a-vuzi-vuzi ‘whitish’

Complex Reduplication (cont.)

Bisa Plural Verbs (C1 + raised V1-)

(Burkina Faso, Prost 1950:53)

to (walk on, sg.) tuto (walk on, pl.)

ba (do) biba

naso (catch) nénaso

son (insult) suson

gar (pull) gigar

Discontinuous Reduplication

Alamblak intensives (Sepik-Ramu, Bruce 1984)

ba joins reduplicated constituents:

hingna-marNa-ba-marNa-mër

work-RED-ba-straight-R.Pst-3sm

‘he worked very well’ (Bruce 1984).

Discontinuous Reduplication (cont.)

Dholuo Mitigating Reduplication

(Omondi 1982:87)

prefix + root + suffix > word + a + root + a

.rech (fish) .rech .arecha (any, mere fish)

tedo (cook) tedo atédâ (just cooking)

nyóro (yesterday) nyóro anyórâ (only yesterday)

Automatic Reduplication

Ilocano Pretentatives (aginCV-):

singpet ‘virtue’

agin-si-singpet ‘pretend to be virtuous’

baknang ‘wealth’

agim-ba-baknang ‘pretend to be rich’

Some Reduplicative Constraints(on the form of the reduplicand)

A. PhonologicalB. Morphological/Lexical

Phonological ConstraintsNukuoro (Caroline Islands, Carroll 1965)

Singular Actor vs Plural Actor [Initial gemination vs. Devoicing of Stops]

seni ‘sleep’ sseni ‘sleep, plural actor’gahu ‘cover up’ kahunoho ‘stay’ nnoholele ‘fly’ llelebole ‘bawl out’ polemodo ‘unripe’ mmodogada ‘smile’ kadaAnd:huge ‘open, plural goal’ vs. hhuge ‘open, singular goal’

Phonological Constraints (cont.)

Majang (Eastern Sudanic, SW Ethiopia, Unseth)

Monosyllabic roots = CV-

Disyllabic roots = -CV- from CV- of final syllable

3s present continuous verb forms, with -ng 3s suffix

Monosyllabic Roots - Reduplicative Prefix

ngaar- (go) ngaa-ngaar-ng (ng = N velar nasal)

Disyllabic Roots - Reduplicative Infix

turku (invert) turkuku-ng

jumur (answer) jumumur-ng

Lexical Constraints (Word Classes)

Ilocano PluralsHigh Frequency Animates (-C-)

babai (girl) babbai (girls)

ubing (child) ubbing (children)

Proper Nouns (CV-)

kabsat (sibling) kakabsat (siblings)

gayyem (friend) gagayyem (friends)

Common Nouns (Distributive CVC-)

balay (house) balbalay (houses)

tawa (window) tawtawa (windows)

Part II

FUNCTIONFUNCTION

With Verbs and Adjectives

Number (plurality, distribution, collectivity)

Distribution of an argument

Tense; aspect (continued or repeated occurrence; completion; inchoativity); Attenuation, intensity

Transitivity (valence, object defocusing)

Reciprocity

Verbs, Adjectives (cont.)

Alabama (Muscogean, Hardy et al 1988)

(Vowel lengthening temporary vs. permanent distinction)

loca ‘to be black (covered in soot)’

lóoca ‘to be a black person’ as well as attenuation via

Attenuating Gemination:

kasatka ‘cold’ > kássatka ‘cool’

lamatki ‘straight’ lámmatki ‘pretty straight’.

Verbs, Adjectives, cont.

Luiseño Iteratives (Uto-Aztecan, Kroeber et al 1960)

lawi ‘to make a hole’

law-lawi ‘to make two holes, make a hole twice’ lawa-láwi ‘to make many holes, more than two’

Verbs, Adjectives (cont.)

Lampung Intensives (Austronesian, Walker 1976)

Different degrees of intensity iconically match reduplicated form:

balak-balak ‘very large’

xa-xabay ‘somewhat afraid’

Verbs, Adjectives (cont.)

Arapesh (Torricelli, Dobrin 2001) intensify or distribute the meaning of an action, often

implying carelessness or lack of control on the part of the agent:

su ‘touch, hold’ susu ‘touch all over, paw’

ripok ‘cut’ riripok ‘hack up’

Verbs, Adjectives (cont.)

Transitivity

Dixon (1988:48): Reduplication is the only way of deriving an intransitive (S verb) from a transitive “O” verb.

Transitive: cula ‘sew’ (O verb)

Reduplicated Intransitive: cula-cula ‘sew away’

With Nouns

Number (and Distributivity)

Case

Indefiniteness

Reciprocity

Size (diminutives or augmentatives)

Associatives

With Nouns (cont.)

CaseChukchi Absolutive Singulars (Chukotko-

Kamchatkan, Dunn 2001)

jokwa-t (eider.duck-pl) ‘eider ducks’

jokwa-jow (eider.duck-rdp[abs.sg]) ‘eider duck, absolutive’

With Nouns (cont.)

Ilocano Reciprocals (Austronesian)

ngiwat ‘mouth’

ngiwanngiwat ‘mouth to mouth’

Yokuts Associatives (Penutian, Newman 1944)

k’his ‘buttocks’

k’k’his ‘one with large buttocks’

With Numbers

Collectives, distributives, multiplicatives, and limitatives:

Pangasinan limitatives tal-talora ‘only three’

Ao Naga distributives (Tibeto-Burman) final CVC reduplication asem ‘three’ > asemsem ‘three each’, ténet ‘seven’ > ténetnet ‘seven each’ (Gowda 1975:39).

With numbers (cont.)

Ilocano Numeral Morphology

Indefinite Numbers: (sumagCV-)

sumag-li-lima ‘about five’

Distributives: (sagCV-)

sag-li-lima ‘five each’

Limitatives: (CVC-)

lim-lima ‘only five’

Alteration of Word Class

Kayardild (Pama-Nyungan, Evans 1995) kandu ‘blood’ > kandukandu ‘red’

Luiseño (Uto-Aztecan, Kroeber et al 1960) lepi ‘to tan, soften’ > lepé-lpi-‘pliable’

Tigak (Austronesian, Beaumont 1979)

giak ‘send’ > gigiak ‘messenger’

Alteration of Word Class (cont.)

Nama Causatives (Hagman 1977:18)

!óm ‘difficult’ > !óm!om ‘make something difficult’

Note that high tone lowers to mid in reduplicand

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