Reduplication

The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edward Sapir's: "Generally employed, with self-evident symbolism, to indicate such concepts as distribution, plurality, repetition, customary activity, increase of size, added intensity, continuance.

"[1] It is used in inflections to convey a grammatical function, such as plurality or intensification, and in lexical derivation to create new words.

It is often used when a speaker adopts a tone more expressive or figurative than ordinary speech and is also often, but not exclusively, iconic in meaning.

Examples can be found in language as old as Sumerian, where it was used in forming some color terms, e.g. babbar "white", kukku "black".

[4] In this article, English translations of words are shown in apostrophes: Triplication occurs in other languages, e.g. Ewe, Shipibo, Twi, Mokilese, Min Nan (Hokkien), Stau.

For instance, in Tz'utujil a new '-ish' adjective form is derived from other words by suffixing the reduplicated first consonant of the base followed by the segment [oχ].

Other Indo-European verbs used reduplication as a derivational process: compare Latin sto ("I stand") and sisto ("I remain").

Finnish colloquial speech uses the process; nouns can be reduplicated to indicate genuinity, completeness, originality and being uncomplicated, as opposed to being fake, incomplete, complicated or fussy.

In some Salishan languages, reduplication can mark both diminution and plurality, with one process being applied to each end of the word, as in the following example from Shuswap.

[9] At 25–50 weeks after birth, typically developing infants go through a stage of reduplicated or canonical babbling (Stark 198, Oller, 1980).

Lithuanian kãklas 'neck', Sanskrit cakrá 'wheel', Greek κύκλος (kýklos) 'circle'), which doubled *kʷel-o- (cf.

Most, but not all (e.g., pipi, blauwblauw (laten), taaitaai (gingerbread)) reduplications in Dutch are loanwords (e.g., koeskoes, bonbon, (ik hoorde het) via via) or imitative (e.g., tamtam, tomtom).

Afrikaans makes use of reduplication to emphasize the meaning of the word repeated and to denote a plural or event happening in more than one place.

Further examples of this include: "koes" (to dodge) being reduplicated in the sentence "Piet hardloop koes-koes weg" (Piet is running away while constantly dodging / cringing); "sukkel" (to struggle) becoming "sukkel-sukkel" (making slow progress; struggling on); and "kierang" (to cheat) becoming "kierang-kierang" to indicate being cheated on repeatedly.

")[22] Common uses for reduplication in French are the creation of hypocoristics for names, whereby Louise becomes Loulou, and Zinedine Zidane becomes Zizou; and in many nursery words, like dada 'horsie' (vs. cheval 'horse'), tati/tata 'auntie' (vs. tante 'aunt'), or tonton 'unkie' (vs. oncle 'uncle').

In Romanian and Catalan, reduplication is not uncommon and it has been used for both the creation of new words (including many from onomatopoeia) and expressions, for example, In colloquial Mexican Spanish it is common to use reduplicated adverbs such as luego luego (then then) meaning "immediately", or casi casi (almost almost) which intensifies the meaning of 'almost'.

[24] Typically all Indo-Aryan languages, like Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati and Bengali use partial or echoic reduplication in some form or the other.

South Asian Indo Aryan languages are also rich in other forms of reduplication: morphological (expressives), lexical (distributives), and phrasal (aspectual).

MarathiReduplication also occurs in the 3rd gaṇa (verb class) of the Sanskrit language: bibheti "he fears", bibharti "he bears", juhoti "he offers", dadāti, "he gives".

Even though the general idea is to reduplicate the verb root as a prefix, several sandhi rules change the outcome.

The added consonant is unpredictable, grammatically speaking; phonological studies, such as Wedel (1999), shed light on the subject.

There are a lot of reduplications in this category which do not, if used as one word, have a place in the Turkish language's vocabulary but is used solely in this way.

TeluguReduplication is a common phenomenon in Bantu languages and is usually used to form a frequentive verb or for emphasis.

[43] From the root kHb 'pile stones into a wall', since the second radical is not fully specified, what some call "hollow", the antepenultimate reduplication process reduplicates the k inserting the vowel a along with the consonant as a place holder for the hollow consonant, which is by some criteria antepenultimate, and produces akakabä 'pile stones repeatedly'.

It is used for expression of various grammatical functions (such as verbal aspect) and it is part in a number of complex morphological models.

[50] Reduplication can convey a simple plural meaning, for instance wahine "woman", waahine "women", tangata "person", taangata "people".

Reduplication can also extend the meaning of a word; for instance paki "pat" becomes papaki "slap or clap once" and pakipaki "applaud"; kimo "blink" becomes kikimo "close eyes firmly" The Mortlockese language is a Micronesian language spoken primarily on the Mortlock Islands.

[53] Iterative: Intensification: Specification: Diminutive: Metaphorical (typically comparing an animal action with a human action):[53] Nominalizing: Adjectival: Philippine languages are characterized as having the most productive use of reduplication, especially in Tagalog (the basis of the Filipino language).

[54][55][56] Full or partial reduplication among nouns and pronouns can indicate emphasis, intensity, plurality, or causation; as well as a diminutive, superlative, iterative, restrictive, or distributive force.

Joseba Lakarra proposes that in Pre-Proto-Basque there was extensive reduplication[62] and that later, certain initial consonants were deleted, leaving the VCV pattern of Proto-Basque: