|
Reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word, or part of it, is repeated. This repetition is used to convey a grammatical function, such plurality, intensification, etc. It is found in many languages, though its importance and productivity varies.
In the Malayo-Polynesian family, reduplication is used to form plurals:
- Bahasa Malay rumah "house", rumah-rumah "houses".
- Hawaiian has the important example wiki-wiki.
The Nama language uses reduplication to increase the force of a verb: go, "look;", go-go "examine with attention".
Mandarin Chinese also uses reduplication: ren, "person", renren "everybody". Japanese does it too: toki "time", tokidoki "sometimes, from time to time". Note that in these languages reduplication is not a productive process, i. e. it's not part of a regular system.
Indo-European languages formerly used reduplication to form a number of verb forms, especially in the preterite or perfect tenses. In the older Indo-European languages, many such verbs survive:
- spondeo, spopondi (Latin, "I vow, I vowed")
- λείπω, λέλοιπα (Greek, "I am missing, I was missing")
- δερκομαι, δεδορκα, (Greek, "I see, I saw"; these Greek examples exhibit ablaut as well as reduplication)
- háitan, haíháit (Gothic, "to name, I named")
None of these sorts of forms survive in modern English, although they existed in its parent Germanic languages. A number of verbs in the Indo-European languages exhibit reduplication in the present stem rather than the perfect stem: Latin gigno, genui ("I beget, I begat") is a surviving example. Other Indo-European verbs used reduplication as a derivational process; compare Latin sto ("I stand") and sisto ("I remain"). All of these Indo-European inherited reduplicating forms are subject to reduction by other phonological laws.
Recent Finnish slang has found a novel way to use reduplication: a reduplicated noun indicates genuinity, completeness, originality and being uncomplicated as opposed to being fake, incomplete, complicated or fussy. It can be thought as compound word formation. E.g. Söin viisi jäätelöä, pullapitkon ja karkkia, sekä tietysti ruokaruokaa. "I ate five choc-ices, a long loaf of coffee bread and candy, and of course foodfood". Here, the "foodfood" is contrasted to the "junkfood" -- the principal role of food is nutrition, and "junkfood" isn't nutritious, so "foodfood" is nutritious food, exclusively.
- ruoka "food", ruokaruoka "proper food", as opposed to snacks
- peli "game", pelipeli "complete game",as opposed to a mod
- puhelin "phone", puhelinpuhelin "phone for talking", as opposed to a pocket computer
- kauas "far away", kauaskauas "unquestionably far away"
See also: augment
|
