linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...

, reduplication is a morphological process in which the

root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...

stem Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

of a

word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...

(or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. 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." Reduplication is used in

inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...

s to convey a grammatical function, such as plurality, intensification, etc., and in lexical

derivation Derivation may refer to: Language * Morphological derivation, a word-formation process * Parse tree or concrete syntax tree, representing a string's syntax in formal grammars Law * Derivative work, in copyright law * Derivation proceeding, a proc ...

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. Reduplication is found in a wide range of languages and language groups, though its level of linguistic productivity varies. Reduplication is found in a wide variety of languages, as exemplified below. Examples of it can be found at least as far back as Sumerian, where it was used in forming some color terms, e.g. ''babbar'' "white", ''kukku'' "black". ''Reduplication'' is the standard term for this phenomenon in the linguistics literature. Other terms that are occasionally used include ''cloning'', ''doubling'', ''duplication'', ''repetition'', and ''

tautonym A tautonym is a scientific name of a species in which both parts of the name have the same spelling, such as ''Rattus rattus''. The first part of the name is the name of the genus and the second part is referred to as the ''specific epithet'' in ...

'' when it is used in biological taxonomies, such as ''

Bison bison The American bison (''Bison bison'') is a species of bison native to North America. Sometimes colloquially referred to as American buffalo or simply buffalo (a different clade of bovine), it is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the ...

''.

Typological description

Form

Reduplication is often described phonologically in one of two ways: either (1) as reduplicated ''segments'' (sequences of

consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

vowels A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...

) or (2) as reduplicated '' prosodic units'' (

syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological ...

s or

moras Moras is a commune in the Isère department in southeastern France. Population See also *Communes of the Isère department The following is a list of the 512 communes in the French department of Isère Isère ( , ; frp, Isera; oc, ...

). In addition to phonological description, reduplication often needs to be described morphologically as a reduplication of linguistic constituents (i.e.

words A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...

, stems,

roots A root is the part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors the plant body, and absorbs and stores water and nutrients. Root or roots may also refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''The Root'' (magazine), an online magazine focusing ...

). As a result, reduplication is interesting theoretically as it involves the interface between phonology and morphology. The ''base'' is the word (or part of the word) that is to be copied. The reduplicated element is called the ''reduplicant'', often abbreviated as ''RED'' or sometimes just ''R''. In reduplication, the reduplicant is most often repeated only once. However, in some languages, reduplication can occur more than once, resulting in a tripled form, and not a ''duple'' as in most reduplication. Triplication is the term for this phenomenon of copying two times. Pingelapese has both forms: Triplication occurs in other languages, e.g. Ewe,

Shipibo The Shipibo-Conibo are an indigenous people along the Ucayali River in the Amazon rainforest in Peru. Formerly two groups, the Shipibo and the Conibo, they eventually became one distinct tribe through intermarriage and communal ritual and are cur ...

, Twi, Mokilese,

Min Nan Southern Min (), Minnan ( Mandarin pronunciation: ) or Banlam (), is a group of linguistically similar and historically related Sinitic languages that form a branch of Min Chinese spoken in Fujian (especially the Minnan region), most of Taiwan ...

(

Hokkien The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages ...

), Stau. Sometimes

gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

(i.e. the doubling of consonants or vowels) is considered to be a form of reduplication. The term ''dupleme'' has been used (after ''morpheme'') to refer to different types of reduplication that have the same meaning.

Full and partial reduplication

''Full reduplication'' involves a reduplication of the entire word. For example,

Kham Kham (; ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas (), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham ...

derives reciprocal forms from reflexive forms by total reduplication: Another example is from Musqueam

Halkomelem Halkomelem (; in the Upriver dialect, in the Island dialect, and in the Downriver dialect) is a language of various First Nations peoples of the British Columbia Coast. It is spoken in what is now British Columbia, ranging from southeastern ...

"dispositional" aspect formation: ''Partial reduplication'' involves a reduplication of only part of the word. For example, Marshallese forms words meaning 'to wear X' by reduplicating the last ''consonant-vowel-consonant'' (''CVC'') sequence of a base, i.e. ''base''+''CVC'': Many languages often use both full and partial reduplication, as in the Motu example below:

Reduplicant position

Reduplication may be ''initial'' (i.e. prefixal), ''final'' (i.e.

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...

al), or ''internal'' (i.e.

infix An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem (an existing word or the core of a family of words). It contrasts with '' adfix,'' a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix. When marking text for i ...

al), e.g. Initial reduplication in

Agta The Aeta (Ayta ), Agta, or Dumagat, are collective terms for several Filipino indigenous peoples who live in various parts of the island of Luzon in the Philippines. They are considered to be part of the Negrito ethnic groups and share common ...

''(CV- prefix)'': Final reduplication in Dakota ''(-CCV suffix)'': Internal reduplication in Samoan ''(-CV- infix)'': Internal reduplication is much less common than the initial and final types.

Copying direction

A reduplicant can copy from either the left edge of a word (''left-to-right'' copying) or from the right edge (''right-to-left'' copying). There is a tendency for prefixing reduplicants to copy left-to-right and for suffixing reduplicants to copy right-to-left: Initial L → R copying in Oykangand

Kunjen Kunjen, or Uw, is a Paman language spoken on the Cape York Peninsula of Queensland, Australia, by the Uw Oykangand, Olkola, and related Aboriginal Australian peoples. It is closely related to Kuuk Thaayorre, and perhaps Kuuk Yak. Two of i ...

(a Pama–Nyungan language of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

): Final R → L copying in

Sirionó The Sirionó are an indigenous people of Bolivia. They primarily live in the forested northern and eastern parts of Beni and northwestern Santa Cruz departments of Bolivia.Tillamook: Final L → R copying in Chukchi: Internal reduplication can also involve copying the beginning or end of the base. In Quileute, the first consonant of the base is copied and inserted after the first vowel of the base. Internal L → R copying in Quileute: In Temiar, the last consonant of the root is copied and inserted before the medial consonant of the root. Internal R → L copying in Temiar (an

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ...

language of

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...

): A rare type of reduplication is found in Semai (an Austroasiatic language of Malaysia). "Expressive minor reduplication" is formed with an initial reduplicant that copies the first and last segment of the base:

Reduplication and other morphological processes

All of the examples above consist of only reduplication. However, reduplication often occurs with other phonological and morphological process, such as

vowel alternation In linguistics, apophony (also known as ablaut, (vowel) gradation, (vowel) mutation, alternation, internal modification, stem modification, stem alternation, replacive morphology, stem mutation, internal inflection etc.) is any alternation wi ...

, deletion, affixation of non-reduplicating material, etc. 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 . This can be written succinctly as '. Below are some examples: * 'red' → 'reddish' * 'yellow' → 'yellowish' * 'water' → 'watery' (Dayley 1985)

Somali Somali may refer to: Horn of Africa * Somalis, an inhabitant or ethnicity associated with Greater Somali Region ** Proto-Somali, the ancestors of modern Somalis ** Somali culture ** Somali cuisine ** Somali language, a Cushitic language ** Somali ...

has a similar suffix that is used in forming the plural of some nouns: ''-aC'' (where ''C'' is the last consonant of the base): * 'ditch' → 'ditches' * 'lump of meat' → 'lumps of meat' * 'boy' → 'boys' (Abraham 1964) This combination of reduplication and affixation is commonly referred to as ''fixed-segment reduplication''. In Tohono O'odham initial reduplication also involves

of the first consonant in the distributive plural and in repetitive verbs: * 'ox' → 'ox (distributive)' (''no''-n-nowiu) * 'rock' → 'rock (distributive)' (''ho''-h-hodai) * 'dig out of ground (unitative)' → 'dig out of ground (repetitive)' (''ko''-k-kow) * 'hit (unitative)' → 'hit (repetitive)' (Haugen forthcoming) Sometimes gemination can be analyzed as a type of reduplication.

Phonological processes, environment, and reduplicant-base relations

* overapplication * underapplication * backcopying – A putative phenomenon of over-application in the reduplicant of a process triggered by the reduplicant in the base * base-reduplicant "identity" ( OT terminology: BR-faithfulness) * tonal transfer/non-transfer

Function and meaning

In the

Malayo-Polynesian The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southea ...

family, reduplication is used to form plurals (among many other functions): * Malay ''rumah'' "house", ''rumah-rumah'' "houses". In pre-1972 Indonesian and Malaysian orthography, ''2'' was shorthand for the reduplication that forms plurals: ''orang'' "person", ''orang-orang'' or ''orang2'' "people". This orthography has resurfaced widely in text messaging and other forms of electronic communication. The

Nama language The Khoekhoe language (), also known by the ethnic terms Nama (''Namagowab'') , Damara (''ǂNūkhoegowab''), or Nama/Damara and formerly as Hottentot, is the most widespread of the non-Bantu languages of Southern Africa that make heavy use o ...

uses reduplication to increase the force of a

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

: ''go'', "look;", ''go-go'' "examine with attention". Chinese also uses reduplication: ''rén'' for "person", ''rénrén'' for "everybody". Japanese does it too: ''toki'' "time", ''tokidoki'' "sometimes, from time to time". Both languages can use a special written

iteration mark Iteration marks are characters or punctuation marks that represent a duplicated character or word. Chinese In Chinese, (usually appearing as ) or is used in casual writing to represent a doubled character. However, it is not used in formal wri ...

to indicate reduplication, although in Chinese the iteration mark is no longer used in standard writing and is often found only in

calligraphy Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined ...

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, D ...

formerly used reduplication to form a number of

forms, especially in the

preterite The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple ...

or perfect. In the older Indo-European languages, many such verbs survive: *''spondeo'', ''spopondi'' (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

, "I vow, I vowed") * (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, "I leave, I left") * (Greek, "I see, I saw"; these Greek examples exhibit

ablaut In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut (, from German '' Ablaut'' ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its ...

as well as reduplication) *''háitan'', ''haíháit'' (

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

, "to name, I named") Those forms do not survive in Modern English but existed in its parent

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...

. Many verbs in the Indo-European languages exhibit reduplication in the

present The present (or here'' and ''now) is the time that is associated with the events perceived directly and in the first time, not as a recollection (perceived more than once) or a speculation (predicted, hypothesis, uncertain). It is a period of ...

stem, rather than the perfect stem, often with a different vowel from that used for the perfect: Latin ''gigno, genui'' ("I beget, I begat") and Greek τίθημι, ἔθηκα, τέθηκα (I place, I placed, I have placed). Other Indo-European verbs used reduplication as a derivational process: compare Latin ''sto'' ("I stand") and ''sisto'' ("I remain"). All of those Indo-European inherited reduplicating forms are subject to reduction by other phonological laws. Reduplication can be used to refer to the most prototypical instance of a word's meaning. In such a case, it is called

contrastive focus reduplication Contrastive focus reduplication, also called contrastive reduplication, identical constituent compounding, lexical cloning,Horn, L. (1993). Economy and redundancy in a dualistic model of natural language. SKY: The Linguistic Association of Finland ...

. 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. It can be thought as compound word formation. For example, ''Söin jäätelöä ja karkkia, sekä tietysti ruokaruokaa.'' "I ate ice cream and candy, and of course food-food". Here, "food-food" is contrasted to "junk-food". One may say, "En ollut eilen koulussa, koska olin kipeä. Siis kipeäkipeä" ("I wasn't at school yesterday because I was sick. Sick-sick, that is"); that means that one was actually suffering from an illness instead of making up excuses, as usual. * ''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" * ''koti'' "home", ''kotikoti'' "home of your parents", as opposed to one's current place of residence Words can be reduplicated with their case morphemes, as in ''lomalla lomalla'', where the adessive morpheme (-''-lla'') appears twice. While reduplication is intelligible to most Finns, its usage is confined mostly to subgroups of young women and children (and possibly fathers of young children when they talk to their children). However, most young women and children do not use reduplication. Reduplication has a somewhat childish connotation and may be perceived as annoying. In

Swiss German Swiss German (Standard German: , gsw, Schwiizerdütsch, Schwyzerdütsch, Schwiizertüütsch, Schwizertitsch Mundart,Because of the many different dialects, and because there is no defined orthography for any of them, many different spelling ...

, the verbs ''gah'' or ''goh'' "go", ''cho'' "come", ''la'' or ''lo'' "let" and ''aafa'' or ''aafo'' "begin" reduplicate when they are combined with other verbs. In some

Salishan languages The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a family of languages of the Pacific Northwest in North America (the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana). They are characterised by a ...

, 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. Note that the transcription is not comparable to the

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners A ...

, but the reduplication of both initial and final portions of the root is clear: ''ṣōk!Emē'’n'' 'knife' reduplicated as ''ṣuk!ṣuk!Emen'’me’n'' 'plural small knives' (Haeberlin 1918:159). Reduplication has been found to be a major part of Salish languages.

Reduplicative babbling in child language acquisition

At 25–50 weeks after birth, typically developing infants go through a stage of reduplicated or canonical

babbling Babbling is a stage in child development and a state in language acquisition during which an infant appears to be experimenting with uttering articulate sounds, but does not yet produce any recognizable words. Babbling begins shortly after birth ...

(Stark 198, Oller, 1980). Canonical babbling is characterized by repetition of identical or nearly identical consonant-vowel combinations, such as ''nanana'' or ''idididi''. It appears as a progression of language development as infants experiment with their vocal apparatus and home in on the sounds used in their native language. Canonical/reduplicated babbling also appears at a time when general rhythmic behavior, such as rhythmic hand movements and rhythmic kicking, appear. Canonical babbling is distinguished from earlier syllabic and vocal play, which has less structure.

Examples

Indo-European

Proto-Indo-European

The

Proto-Indo-European language Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...

used partial reduplication of a consonant and ''e'' in many stative aspect verb forms. The perfect or preterite (past) tense of some

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writte ...

, and

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

verbs preserve this reduplication: * Ancient Greek ''lúō'' 'I free' vs. ''léluka'' "I have freed" * Gothic ''hald'' "I hold" vs. ''haíhald'' (''hĕhald'') "I/he held" * Latin "I run" vs. "I ran" or "have run" * Old Irish "it breaks" vs. "it broke" * Old Norse ''rœ'' "I row" vs. ''rera'' (''røra'') "I rowed" * Sanskrit ''likhati'' 'he writes' vs. ''lilekha'' "he has written" or "he wrote" * A rare modern English reflex is ''do'' vs. ''did'' Proto-Indo-European also used reduplication for the

imperfective aspect The imperfective ( abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a ge ...

. Ancient Greek preserves this reduplication in the present tense of some verbs. Usually, but not always, this is reduplication of a consonant and ''i'', and contrasts with e-reduplication in the perfect: * ''dídōmi'' "I give" (present) * ''dédōka'' "I have given" (perfect) * * ''sísdō'' → ''hízō'' "I set" (present) * * ''sésdomai'' → ''hézomai'' "I sit down" (present; from sd-, zero-grade of

in *sed-os → ἕδος ''hédos'' "seat, abode") Reduplication in nouns was rare, the best example being Proto-Indo-European ' '

wheel A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction with axles, allow heavy objects to be ...

' (cf. Lithuanian ''kãklas'' 'neck',

''cakrá'' 'wheel',

''κύκλος'' (kýklos) 'circle'), which doubled *''kʷel-o-'' (cf.

Old Prussian Old Prussian was a Western Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European languages, which was once spoken by the Old Prussians, the Baltic peoples of the Prussian region. The language is called Old Prussian to avoid con ...

''kelan'' 'wheel',

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

''pêl'' 'ball'), itself likely a deverbative of *''kʷelh₁-'' 'to turn'.

English

English has several types of reduplication, ranging from informal expressive vocabulary (the first four forms below) to grammatically meaningful forms (the last two below). See also the alliteration section of the irreversible binomial article for cases like ''flip-flop'', ''dribs and drabs'', ''etc.'' * Rhyming reduplication: Boogie-woogie, easy-peasy, hanky-panky, hocus-pocus, hoity-toity, hokey-pokey, hurdy-gurdy, itsy-bitsy, namby-pamby, raggle-taggle, ragtag, razzle-dazzle, super-duper, teenie-weenie, willy-nilly, wingding. * Exact reduplications: Ack ack, aye-aye, back-to-back, blah-blah, boo-boo, bye-bye, chin-chin, choo-choo, chow-chow, dik-dik, doo-doo, fifty-fifty, gogo, ha ha, half-and-half, housey-housey, juju, klop-klop, mama,

muumuu The muumuu or muumuu () is a loose dress of Hawaiian origin that hangs from the shoulder and is like a cross between a shirt and a robe. Like the aloha shirt, muumuu exports are often brilliantly colored with floral patterns of generic Polynes ...

, night-night, no-no, papa, pee-pee, pip-pip,

pom-pom A pom-pom – also spelled pom-pon, pompom or pompon – is a decorative ball or tuft of fibrous material. The term may refer to large tufts used by cheerleaders, or a small, tighter ball attached to the top of a hat, also known as a ...

, poo-poo, pooh-pooh, putt putt, so-so, ta-ta, tut-tut, tutu, wah-wah, wee-wee,

yo-yo A yo-yo (also spelled yoyo) is a toy consisting of an axle connected to two disks, and a string looped around the axle, similar to a spool. It is an ancient toy with proof of existence since 500 BCE. The yo-yo was also called a bandalore in ...

. While in many forms of English, exact reduplications can also be used to emphasise the strength of a word ("He wants it ''now'' now"), in South African English, 'now-now' means 'relatively soon'. ** lexical reduplication: 'Each-each boy take one-one chair.'

Indian English Indian English (IE) is a group of English dialects spoken in the republic of India and among the Indian diaspora. English is used by the Indian government for communication, along with Hindi, as enshrined in the Constitution of India. ...

* Ablaut reduplications: In

reduplications, the first vowel is almost always a

high vowel A close vowel, also known as a high vowel (in U.S. terminology), is any in a class of vowel sounds used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of th ...

(typically ɪ as in hit) and the reduplicated vowel is a

low vowel An open vowel is a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels (in U.S. terminology ) in reference to the low position of the tongue. In the cont ...

(typically æ as in ''cat'' or ɒ as in ''top''). Examples include: bric-a-brac, chit-chat, clip-clop, ding-dong, flimflam, flip-flop, hip-hop, jibber-jabber, kitty-cat, knick-knack, mishmash, ping-pong, pitter-patter, riffraff, sing-song, slipslop, splish-splash, tick-tock, ticky-tacky, tip-top, whiff-whaff, wibble-wobble, wishy-washy, zig-zag. Three-part ablaut sequences are less numerous, but are attested, e.g. tic-tac-toe, bing-bang-boom, bish-bash-bosh and splish-splash-splosh.

Spike Milligan Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an Irish actor, comedian, writer, musician, poet, and playwright. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Colonial India, where he spent his ...

's poem On the Ning Nang Nong achieves comic effect by varying the ordering of vowels in such triples: ''There's a Nong Nang Ning/Where the trees go Ping!''. * Shm-reduplication can be used with most any word; e.g. ''baby-shmaby'', ''cancer-shmancer'' and ''fancy-shmancy''. This process is a feature of

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...

from

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

, starting among the

American Jews American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora J ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, then the New York dialect and then the whole country. Of the above types, only shm-reduplication is

productive Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...

, meaning that examples of the first three are fixed forms and new forms are not easily accepted. *

Comparative general linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two (or more) entities or groups of entities in quality or degree - see also comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as well ...

reduplication: In the sentence "John's apple looked redder and redder," the reduplication of the

comparative general linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two (or more) entities or groups of entities in quality or degree - see also comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as well ...

indicates that the comparative is becoming more true over time, meaning roughly "John's apple looked progressively redder as time went on." In particular, this construction does mean that John's apple is redder than some other apple, which would be a possible interpretation in the absence of reduplication, e.g. in "John's apple looked redder." With reduplication, the comparison is of the object being compared to itself over time. Comparative reduplication always combines the reduplicated comparative with "and". This construction is common in speech and is used even in formal speech settings, but it is less common in formal written texts. Although English has simple constructs with similar meanings, such as "John's apple looked ever redder," these simpler constructs are rarely used in comparison with the reduplicative form. Comparative reduplication is fully

and clearly changes the meaning of any comparative to a temporal one, despite the absence of any time-related words in the construction. For example, the temporal meaning of "The frug seemed wuggier and wuggier" is clear: despite not knowing what a frug is or what wugginess is, it is easy to grasp that the apparent wugginess of the frug was increasing over time, as indicated by the reduplication of the comparative "wuggier". *

Contrastive focus reduplication Contrastive focus reduplication, also called contrastive reduplication, identical constituent compounding, lexical cloning,Horn, L. (1993). Economy and redundancy in a dualistic model of natural language. SKY: The Linguistic Association of Finland ...

: Exact reduplication can be used with contrastive focus (generally where the first noun is stressed) to indicate a literal, as opposed to figurative, example of a noun, or perhaps a sort of

Platonic ideal The theory of Forms or theory of Ideas is a philosophical theory, fuzzy concept, or world-view, attributed to Plato, that the physical world is not as real or true as timeless, absolute, unchangeable ideas. According to this theory, ideas in th ...

of the noun, as in "Is that carrot cheesecake or carrot CAKE-cake?". This is similar to the Finnish use mentioned above. Furthermore, it is used to contrast "real" or "pure" things against imitations or less pure forms. For example, at a coffee shop one may be asked, "Do you want soy milk?" and respond, "No, I want milk milk." This gives the idea that they want "real" milk. The

double copula The double copula, also known as the reduplicative copula, double is or Isis, is the usage of two successive copulae when only one is necessary, largely in spoken English. For example: :''My point is, is that...'' This construction is accepte ...

is in some cases a type of reduplication, which may be regarded as non-standard or incorrect. More can be learned about English reduplication in , , and .

Dutch

While not common in Dutch, reduplication does exist. Most, but not all (e.g., ''pipi'', ''blauwblauw'' (laten), ''taaitaai'' (gingerbread)) reduplications in Dutch are

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...

s (e.g., ''koeskoes'', ''bonbon'', (ik hoorde het) ''via via'') or imitative (e.g., ''tamtam'', ''tomtom''). Another example is a former safe sex campaign slogan in Flanders: ''Eerst bla-bla, dan boem-boem'' (''First talk, then have sex''; lit. ''First blah-blah, then boom-boom''). In Dutch the verb "gaan" (''to go'') can be used as an auxiliary verb, which can lead to a triplication: ''we gaan (eens) gaan gaan'' (we are going to get going). The use of ''gaan'' as an auxiliary verb with itself is considered incorrect, but is commonly used in Flanders. Numerous examples of reduplication in Dutch (and other languages) are discussed by Daniëls (2000).

Afrikaans

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gr ...

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. For example, ''krap'' means "to scratch one's self," while ''krap-krap-krap'' means "to scratch one's self vigorously", whereas "dit het plek-plek gereën" means "it rained here and there". Reduplication in Afrikaans has been described extensively in the literature – see for example , and . 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.

Romance languages

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

reduplication was used both to create new words or word associations (''tran-tran'', ''via via'', ''leccalecca'') and to intensify the meaning (''piano piano'' "very softly"). Common in

Lingua Franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

, particularly but not exclusively for onomatopoeic action descriptions: "''Spagnoli venir...boum boum...andar; Inglis venir...boum boum bezef...andar; Francés venir...tru tru tru...chapar.''" ("The Spaniards came, cannonaded, and left. The English came, cannonaded heavily, and left. The French came, trumpeted on bugles, and captured it.") Common uses for reduplication in

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

are the creation of

hypocoristic A hypocorism ( or ; from Ancient Greek: (), from (), 'to call by pet names', sometimes also ''hypocoristic'') or pet name is a name used to show affection for a person. It may be a diminutive form of a person's name, such as '' Izzy'' for ...

s for

names A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A persona ...

, whereby ''Louise'' becomes ''Loulou'', and

Zinedine Zidane Zinedine Yazid Zidane (; born 23 June 1972), popularly known as Zizou, is a French professional football manager and former player who played as an attacking midfielder. He most recently coached Spanish club Real Madrid and is one of the mos ...

becomes ''Zizou''; and in many nursery words, like ''dada'' 'horsie' (vs. ''cheval'' 'horse'), ''tati'' 'auntie' (vs. ''tante'' 'aunt'), or ''tonton'' 'unkie' (vs. ''oncle'' 'uncle'). In

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania ** Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...

and

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

, reduplication is not uncommon and it has been used for both the creation of new words (including many from

onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...

) and expressions, for example, *Romanian: ''mormăi'', ''ţurţur'', ''dârdâi'', expressions ''talmeş-balmeş'', ''harcea-parcea'', ''terchea-berchea'', ''ţac-pac'', ''calea-valea'', ''hodoronc-tronc''. *Catalan: ''balandrim-balandram, baliga-balaga, banzim-banzam, barliqui-barloqui, barrija-barreja, bitllo-bitllo, bub-bub, bum-bum, but-but, catric-catrac, cloc-cloc, cloc-piu, corre-corrents, de nyigui-nyogui, farrigo-farrago, flist-flast, fru-fru, gara-gara, gloc-gloc, gori-gori, leri-leri, nap-buf, ning-nang, ning-ning, non-non, nyam-nyam, nyau-nyau, nyec-nyec, nyeu-nyeu, nyic-nyic, nyigo-nyigo, nyigui-nyogui, passa-passa, pengim-penjam, pif-paf, ping-pong, piu-piu, poti-poti, rau-rau, ringo-rango, rum-rum, taf-taf, tam-tam, tau-tau, tic-tac, tol·le-tol·le, tric-trac, trip-trap, tris-tras, viu-viu, xano-xano, xau-xau, xerric-xerrac, xim-xim, xino-xano, xip-xap, xiu-xiu, xup-xup, zig-zag, ziga-zaga, zim-zam, zing-zing, zub-zub, zum-zum''. 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'.

Slavic languages

The

reduplication in the Russian language Reduplication in Russian is used to intensify meaning in different ways. Reduplication is also observable in borrowed words, such as "" (; ping-pong) and "" (; zig-zag), but since the words were borrowed as is from other languages, they are n ...

serves for various kinds of intensifying of the meaning and exists in several forms: a

hyphenated The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (figure ...

or repeated

(either exact or inflected reduplication), and forms similar to shm-reduplication.

Celtic languages

Reduplication is a common feature of Irish and includes the examples ''rírá'', ''ruaille buaille'' both meaning 'commotion' and ''fite fuaite'' meaning 'intertwined'.

Indo-Aryan

Typically all Indo-Aryan languages, like

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

and

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

use partial or echoic reduplication in some form or the other. It is usually used to sound casual, or in a suggestive manner. It is often used to mean ''etcetera''. For example, in Hindi, chai-shai (''chai'' means tea, while this phrase means tea or any other supplementary drink or tea along with snacks). Quite common in casual conversations are a few more examples like shopping-wopping, khana-wana. South Asian Indo Aryan languages are also rich in other forms of reduplication: morphological (expressives), lexical (distributives), and phrasal (aspectual). *morphological: Reduplication 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. There are a number of constructions in Hindi and Urdu that are constructed by reduplication. Nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, pronouns, all have possibility of reduplications.

Armenian

In Armenian, reduplication follows the same classification as in Turkish (see below), namely emphatic reduplication, echo reduplication, and doubling. Many appear as lexical entries in Armenian lexicographical sources. # Emphatic reduplication, one of two interpolated consonants (փ, ս), as in ''կարմիր'' (red), which becomes ''կասկարմիր'' (very red). # Echo Reduplication, as in ''սեղան-մեղան'' (table schmable). # Doubling, as in ''քիչ-քիչ'' (little ylittle)

Turkish

In Turkish, there are three kinds of reduplication. # Emphatic Reduplication: A word can be reduplicated partially, such that an emphatic stem is created to be attached to the adjective. This is done by taking the first syllable of the adjective, dropping the syllable-final phoneme, and adding one of four interpolated consonants (p, s, m, r). For example, ''kırmızı'' (red) becomes ''kıpkırmızı'' (very red); ''mavi'' (blue) becomes ''masmavi'' (very blue); ''yeşil'' (green) becomes ''yemyeşil'' (very green), and ''temiz'' (clean) becomes ''tertemiz'' ("spotless"). However, the consonant added to the emphatic stem is unpredictable grammatically speaking, however phonological studies, such as Wedel (1999)Wedel (1999) do shed new light on the subject. # Echo Reduplication: A word can be reduplicated while replacing the initial consonants (not being ''m'', and possibly missing) with ''m''. The effect is that the meaning of the original word is broadened. For example, ''tabak'' means "plate(s)", and ''tabak mabak'' then means "plates, dishes and such". This can be applied not only to nouns but to all kinds of words, as in ''yeşil meşil'' meaning "green, greenish, whatever". Although not used in formal written Turkish, it is a completely standard and fully accepted construction. # Doubling: A word can be reduplicated totally, giving a related but different meaning or used for emphasizing. For example, ''zaman zaman'' (time time) meaning "occasionally"; ''uzun uzun'' (long long) meaning "very long or many things long". This type is used also in formal Turkish, especially in literature. 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. These words are called mimetic in linguistics. An example is 'şırıl şırıl' (used for the sound of a waterfall). They try to give sounds to not only audible but also non-audible phenomena. For example, 'mışıl mışıl' is used for sleeping soundly.

Dravidian

Reduplication is also used in

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant im ...

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode ...

for the same purpose. * phrasal:

Bantu

Reduplication is a common phenomenon in

Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The t ...

and is usually used to form a frequentive verb or for emphasis. * Swahili ''piga'' 'to strike'; ''pigapiga'' 'to strike repeatedly' *

Ganda Ganda may refer to: Places * Ganda, Angola * Ganda, Tibet, China * Ganda, the ancient Latin name of Ghent, a city in Belgium Other uses * Baganda or Ganda, a people of Uganda ** Luganda or Ganda language, a language of Uganda * ''Ganda'' and "Ga ...

''okukuba'' (''oku-kuba'') 'to strike'; ''okukubaakuba'' (''oku-kuba-kuba'') 'to strike repeatedly, to batter' *

Chewa Chewa may refer to: *the Chewa people *the Chewa language Chewa (also known as Nyanja, ) is a Bantu language spoken in much of Southern, Southeast and East Africa, namely the countries of Malawi , where it is an official language, and Mozambiq ...

''tambalalá'' 'to stretch one's legs'; ''tambalalá-tambalalá'' to stretch one's legs repeatedly' Popular names that have reduplication include *

Bafana Bafana The South Africa national soccer team represents South Africa in men's international soccer and it is run by the South African Football Association, the governing body for Soccer in South Africa. The team's nickname is Bafana Bafana (The Boys/G ...

* Chipolopolo *

Eric Djemba-Djemba Eric Daniel Djemba-Djemba (born 4 May 1981) is a Cameroonian former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. He previously played club football in France, England, Qatar, Denmark, Israel, Serbia, Scotland, India and Indonesia. In int ...

Lomana LuaLua Trésor Lomana LuaLua (; born 28 December 1980) is a Congolese professional footballer who last played as a striker. He is currently the attacking coach for Spalding United. LuaLua was born in Kinshasa, but moved to England at a young age. ...

* Ngorongoro

Semitic

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant ...

frequently reduplicate consonants, though often not the vowels that appear next to the consonants in some verb form. This can take the shape of reduplicating the antepenultimate consonant (usually the second of three), the last of two consonants, or the last two consonants.

Hebrew

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

, reduplication is used in nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs for various reasons: * For emphasis: in ''le'at le'at'', where the adverb "slowly" is duplicated to mean "very slowly". In the slangism ''gever gever'', the noun "man" is duplicated to mean a "very manly man". * To mean "one by one": ** ''yom yom'' is based on "day", and means "every day, day by day". ** ''para para'' is based on "cow", and literally means "cow by cow", referring to "one thing at a time". This is possibly a folk etymology, and a derivation from Spanish "para" meaning "stop" is possible. * To create a diminutive: by reduplicating the last two consonants (bi-consonantal reduplication): ** ''kelev'' "dog" *** ''klavlav'' "puppy" ** ''khatul'' "cat" *** ''khataltul'' "kitten" ** ''lavan'' "white" *** ''levanban'' "whitish" ** ''katan'' "small" *** ''ktantan'' "tiny" * To create secondary derivative verbs: by reduplicating the root or part of it: ** ''dal'' () "poor" > ''dilel'' () "to dilute", and also ''dildel'' () "to impoverish, weaken". ** ''nad'' () "to move, nod"' > ''nadad'' () "to wander" but also ''nidned'' () "to swing" and - due to

phono-semantic matching Phono-semantic matching (PSM) is the incorporation of a word into one language from another, often creating a neologism, where the word's non-native quality is hidden by replacing it with phonetically and semantically similar words or roots fro ...

of the

lexical item נודיען nídyen / núdzhen "to bore, bother" - also "to bother, pest, nag, annoy". Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2003),

Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew ''Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew'' is a scholarly book written in the English language by linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann, published in 2003 by Palgrave Macmillan. The book proposes a socio-philological framework for the an ...

Palgrave Macmillan Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains off ...

. /

/ref> ** ''tzakhak'' () "to laugh" > ''tzikhkek'' () "to chuckle". * For onomatopoeia: ** שקשק ''shikshék'' "to make noise, rustle". ** רשרש ''rishrésh'' "to make noise, rustle".

Amharic

In Amharic language, Amharic, verb roots can be reduplicated three different ways. These can result in verbs, nouns, or adjectives (which are often derived from verbs). From the root ''sbr'' 'break', antepenultimate reduplication produces ''täsäbabbärä'' 'it was shattered' and biconsonantal reduplication produces ''täsbäräbbärä'' 'it was shattered repeatedly' and ''səbərbari'' 'a shard, a shattered piece'. 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'.

Japanese

A small number of native Japanese nouns have

collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an ...

forms produced by reduplication (possibly with

rendaku is a phenomenon in Japanese morphophonology that governs the voicing of the initial consonant of a non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word. In modern Japanese, ''rendaku'' is common but at times unpredictable, with certain words un ...

), such as 人々 ''hitobito'' "people" (''h'' → ''b'' is rendaku) – these are written with the

"々" to indicate duplication. This formation is not

and is limited to a small set of nouns. Similarly to Standard Chinese, the meaning is not that of a true

plural The plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the ...

, but collectives that refer to a large, given set of the same object; for example, the formal English equivalent of 人々 would be "people" (collective), rather than "persons" (plural individuals). Japanese also contains a large number of mimetic words formed by reduplication of a syllable. These words include not only

, but also words intended to invoke non-auditory senses or psychological states, such as きらきら ''kirakira'' (sparkling or shining). By one count, approximately 43% of Japanese mimetic words are formed by full reduplication, and many others are formed by partial reduplication, as in がささ〜 ''ga-sa-sa-'' (rustling) – compare English "''a''-ha-ha-ha".

Austronesian

Austronesian languages are known for their extensive use of reduplication in both nouns and verbs.

Malay (Indonesian and Malaysian)

In the Malay language, reduplication is a very productive process. It is used for expression of various grammatical functions (such as verbal aspect) and it is part in a number of complex morphological models. Simple reduplication of nouns and pronouns can express at least three meanings: #Diversity or non-exhaustive plurality: ##''Burung-burung itu juga diekspor ke luar negeri'' = "All those birds are also exported out of the country". #Conceptual similarity: ##''langit-langit'' = "ceiling; palate; etc." (''langit'' = "sky") ##''jari-jari'' = "spoke; bar; radius; etc." (''jari'' = "finger" etc.) #Pragmatic accentuation: ##''Saya bukan anak-anak lagi!'' "I am not a child anymore!" (''anak'' = "child") Reduplication of an adjective can express different things: *Adverbialisation: ''Jangan bicara keras-keras!'' = "Don't speak loudly!" (''keras'' = hard) *Plurality of the corresponding noun: ''Rumah di sini besar-besar'' = "The houses here are big" (''besar'' = "big"). Reduplication of a verb can express various things: *Simple reduplication: **Pragmatic accentuation: ''Kenapa orang tidak datang-datang?'' = "Why aren't people coming?" *Reduplication with ''me-'' prefixation, depending on the position of the prefix ''me-'': **Repetition or continuation of the action: ''Orang itu memukul-mukul anaknya'': "That man continuously beat his child"; **Reciprocity: ''Kedua orang itu pukul-memukul'' = "Those two men would beat each other". Notice that in the first case, the nasalisation of the initial consonant (whereby /p/ becomes /m/) is repeated, while in the second case, it only applies in the repeated word.

Māori

The

Māori language Māori (), or ('the Māori language'), also known as ('the language'), is an Eastern Polynesian language spoken by the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. Closely related to Cook Islands Māori, Tuamotuan, and ...

(

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

) uses reduplication in a number of ways. Reduplication can convey a simple plural meaning, for instance ''wahine'' "woman", ''waahine'' "women", ''tangata'' "person", ''taangata'' "people". Biggs calls this "infixed reduplication". It occurs in a small subset of "people" words in most Polynesian languages. Reduplication can convey emphasis or repetition, for example ''mate'' "die", ''matemate'' "die in numbers"; and de-emphasis, for example ''wera'' "hot" and ''werawera'' "warm". 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"

Mortlockese

The

Mortlockese language Mortlockese (Kapsen Mwoshulók), also known as Mortlock or Nomoi, is a language that belongs to the Chuukic group of Micronesian languages in the Federated States of Micronesia spoken primarily in the Mortlock Islands ( Nomoi or Lower Mortlock I ...

is a Micronesian language spoken primarily on the Mortlock Islands. In the Mortlockese language, reduplication is used to show a habitual or imperfective aspect. For example, /jææjæ/ means "to use something" while the word /jæjjææjæ/ means "to use something habitually or repeatedly". Reduplication is also used in the Mortlockese Language to show extremity or extreme measures. One example of this can be seen in /ŋiimw alɛɛtɛj/ which means "hate him, her, or it". To mean "really hate him, her, or it," the phrase changes to /ŋii~mw al~mw alɛɛtɛj/.

Pingelapese

Pingelapese is a Micronesian language spoken on the Pingelap atoll and on two of the eastern Caroline Islands, called the high island of Pohnpei. Pingelapese utilizes both duplication and triplication of a verb or part of a verb to express that something is happening for certain duration of time. No reduplication means that something happens. A reduplicated verb means that something IS happening, and a triplication means that something is STILL happening. For example, ''saeng'' means 'to cry' in Pingelapese. When reduplicated and triplicated, the duration of this verb is changed: * ''saeng'' – cries * ''saeng-saeng'' – is crying * ''saeng-saeng-saeng'' – is still crying Few languages employ triplication in their language. In Micronesia, Pingelapese is one of only two languages that uses triplication, the other being Mokilese. Reduplication and triplication are not to be confused with tense however. In order to make a phrase past, present, or future tense, a temporal phrase must be used.

Rapa

Rapa is the French Polynesian language of the island of

Rapa Iti Rapa, also called Rapa Iti, or "Little Rapa", to distinguish it from Easter Island, whose Polynesian name is Rapa Nui, is the largest and only inhabited island of the Bass Islands in French Polynesia. An older name for the island is Oparo. The ...

. In terms of reduplication, the indigenous language known as Old Rapa uses reduplication consistent to other Polynesian languages. Reduplication of Old Rapa occurs in four ways: full, rightward, leftward, and medial. Full and rightward are generally more frequently used as opposed to the leftward and medial. Leftward and medial only occur as CV reduplication and partial leftward and medial usually denote emphasis. Example of Reduplication Forms: For the Rapa Language the implementation of reduplication has specific implications. The most evident of these are known as iterative, intensification, specification, diminutive, metaphorical, nominalizing, and adjectival. Iterative: * naku 'come, go' → nakunaku 'pass by frequently' * ipuni 'hide' → ipunipuni 'hide and seek' Intensification: * mare 'cough' → maremare 'cough forcefully' * roa 'much' → roroa 'very much' * maki 'sick'makimaki 'really sick' Specification: * kini 'to pinch' → kinikini 'pinch skin' Diminutive: * paki 'slap, strike'pakipaki 'clap' * kati 'bite' → katikati 'nibble' Metaphorical (typically comparing an animal action with a human action): * kapa 'mime with hands' → kapakapa 'flap wings (a bird)' * mākuru 'detach oneself' → mākurukuru 'shed or molt' * taŋi 'Yell' → taŋitaŋi 'chirp (a bird)' Nominalizing: * para 'Finished'parapara 'leftovers' * Panga'a 'divide' → panaga'anga'a 'a break, a divide' Adjectival: * repo 'dirt, earth' → reporepo 'dirty' * pake 'sun' → pakepake 'shining, bright'

Tagalog

Philippine languages The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (language ...

are characterized as having the most productive use of reduplication, especially in

Tagalog Tagalog may refer to: Language * Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines ** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language ** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language * Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Taga ...

(the basis of the

Filipino language Filipino (; , ) is an Austronesian language. It is the national language ( / ) of the Philippines, and one of the two official languages of the country, with English. It is a standardized variety of Tagalog based on the native dialect, spok ...

). Reduplication in Tagalog is complex. It can be roughly divided into six types: #Monosyllabic; e.g. ''olol'' ("mad") #Reduplication of the final syllable; e.g. ''himaymay'' ("separate meat from bones"), from ''himay'' (same meaning) #Reduplication of the final syllable of a disyllabic word, where the added syllable is created from the first consonant of the first syllable and the last consonant of the second syllable; e.g. ''kaliskis'' (" ishscale"), from ''kalis'' ("to scrape") #Reduplication of the initial syllable of the root; e.g. ''susulat'' ("will write"), from ''sulat'' ("to write") #Full reduplication; e.g. ''araw-araw'' ("every day"), from ''araw'' ("day" or "sun") #Combined partial and full reduplication; e.g. ''babalibaligtad'' ("turning around continually", "tumbling"), from ''baligtad'' ("reverse") They can further be divided into "non-significant" (where its significance is not apparent) and "significant" reduplication. 1, 2, and 3 are always non-significant; while 5 and 6 are always significant. 4 can be non-significant when used for nouns (e.g. ''lalaki'', "man"). 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. Adjectives and adverbs employ morphological reduplication for many different reasons such as number agreement when the adjective modifies a plural noun, intensification of the adjective or adverb, and sometimes because the prefix forces the adjective to have a reduplicated stem". Number agreement for adjectives is entirely optional in Tagalog (e.g., a plural noun does not have to have a plural article marking it): *"Ang magandang puno" "the beautiful tree". *"Ang ma''ga''gandang puno" "the beautiful tree''s''". The entire adjective is repeated for intensification of adjectives or adverbs: *''Maganda''ng maganda ang kabayo "the horse is ''very'' pretty" In verbs, reduplication of the root, prefix or infix is employed to convey different

grammatical aspect In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, as denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to ...

s. In "Mag- verbs" reduplication of the root after the prefix "mag-" or "nag-" changes the verb from the infinitive form, or perfective aspect, respectively, to the contemplated or imperfective aspect. Thus: *magluto inf/actor trigger-cook "to cook" or "cook!" ( Imperative) *nagluto actor trigger-cook "cooked" *nagluluto actor trigger-reduplication-cook "cook" (as in "I cook all the time) or "is/was cooking" *magluluto inf/actor trigger-rdplc-cook (contemplated) "will cook" For

Ergative verb In general linguistics, a labile verb (or ergative verb) is a verb that undergoes causative alternation; it can be used both transitively and intransitively, with the requirement that the direct object of its transitive use corresponds to the ...

s (frequently referred to as "object focus" verbs) reduplication of part the infix and the stem occur: *lutuin cook-inf/object trigger-cook "to cook" *niluto object trigger infix-cook (perf-cook) "cooked" *niluluto object trigger infix-reduplication-cook "cook"/"is/was cooking" *lulutuin rdp-cook-object trigger "will cook". The complete superlative prefix pagka- demands reduplication of the first syllable of the adjective's stem: *"Ang pagka''ga''gandang puno" "The ''most'' beautiful tree (''and there are none more beautiful anywhere'')"

Wuvulu-Aua

Reduplication is not a productive noun derivation process in Wuvulu-Aua as it is in other Austronesian languages. Some nouns exhibit reduplication, though they are considered to be fossilized. Verb roots can undergo whole or partial reduplication to mark aspect. Actions that are continuous are indicated by a reduplicated initial syllable. A whole reduplication can also be used to indicate imperfective aspect. * "''roni''" "to hurry" * "''roroni''" "hurrying" * "''rawani''" "good" * "''rarawani''" "good" (continuous) * "''ware''" "talk" * "''wareware''" "talked" (durative) The onomatopoeia in Wuvulu language also uses reduplication to describe the sound. These onomatopoeic words can be used as alienable nouns. * "baʔa" or "baʔabaʔa" is a word for the sound of knocking.

Austroasiatic

Vietnamese

Sino-Tibetan

Burmese

As in many

Tibeto-Burman languages The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people sp ...

, in Burmese, reduplication is used in verbs and adjectives to form adverbs. Many Burmese words, especially adjectives such as ('beautiful' ), which consist of two syllables (when reduplicated, each syllable is reduplicated separately), when reduplicated ( → 'beautifully' ) become

adverbs An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering que ...

. This is also true of many Burmese verbs, which become adverbs when reduplicated. Some nouns are also reduplicated to indicate plurality. For instance, , means "country," but when reduplicated to , it means "many countries" (as in , "international"). Another example is , which means "kinds," but the reduplicated form means "multiple kinds." A few measure words can also be reduplicated to indicate "one or the other": * (measure word for people) → (someone) * (measure word for things) → (something)

Notes

Citations * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Print. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Print. *

References

* Abraham, Roy. (1964). ''Somali-English dictionary''. London, England: University of London Press. * Albright, Adam. (2002). A restricted model of UR discovery: Evidence from Lakhota. (Draft version). * * * * Dayley, Jon P. (1985). ''Tzutujil grammar''. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. * Diffloth, Gérald. (1973). Expressives in Semai. In P. N. Jenner, L. C. Thompson, and S. Starsota (Eds.), ''Austroasiatic studies part I'' (pp. 249–264). University Press of Hawaii. * Fabricius, Anne H. (2006). ''A comparative survey of reduplication in Australian languages''. LINCOM Studies in Australian Languages (No. 03). Lincom. . * Gomez, Gale Goodwin, and Hein van der Voort, eds. ''Reduplication in indigenous languages of South America.'' Brill, 2014. * * Haugen, Jason D. (forthcoming). Reduplicative allomorphy and language prehistory in Uto-Aztecan. (Paper presented at Graz Reduplication Conference 2002, November 3–6). * Harlow, Ray. (2007) ''Māori: a linguistic introduction'' Cambridge University Press. . 127–129 * Healey, Phyllis M. (1960). ''An Agta grammar''. Manila: The Institute of National Language and The Summer Institute of Linguistics. * Hurch, Bernhard (Ed.). (2005). ''Studies on reduplication''. Empirical approaches to language typology (No. 28). Mouton de Gruyter. . * * Inkelas, Sharon; & Zoll, Cheryl. (2005). ''Reduplication: Doubling in morphology''. Cambridge studies in linguistics (No. 106). Cambridge University Press. . * * * Marantz, Alec. (1982). Re reduplication. ''Linguistic Inquiry'' 13: 435–482. * McCarthy, John J. and Alan S. Prince. (1986

996 Year 996 ( CMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Japan * February - Chotoku Incident: Fujiwara no Korechika and Takaie shoot an arrow at Retired Emp ...

. Prosodic morphology 1986. Technical report #32. Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science. (Unpublished revised version of the 1986 paper available online on McCarthy's website: http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/pub/papers/pm86all.pdf). * McCarthy, John J.; and Prince, Alan S. (1995). Faithfulness and reduplicative identity. In J. Beckman, S. Urbanczyk, and L. W. Dickey (Eds.), ''University of Massachusetts occasional papers in linguistics 18: Papers in optimality theory'' (pp. 249–384). Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistics Students Association. (Available online on the Rutgers Optimality Archive website: https://web.archive.org/web/20090423020041/http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?id=568). * McCarthy, John J.; and Prince, Alan S. (1999). Faithfulness and identity in prosodic morphology. In R. Kager, H. van der Hulst, and W. Zonneveld (Eds.), ''The prosody morphology interface'' (pp. 218–309). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Available online on the Rutgers Optimality Archive website: https://web.archive.org/web/20050525032431/http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?id=562). * Moravcsik, Edith. (1978). Reduplicative constructions. In J. H. Greenberg (Ed.), ''Universals of human language: Word structure'' (Vol. 3, pp. 297–334). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. * * Oller, D. Kimbrough. 1980. The emergence of the sounds of speech in infancy, in Child Phonology Vol. I, edited by G. H. Yeni-Komshian, J. F. Kavanaugh, and C. A. Ferguson. Academic Press, New York. pp. 93–112. * * * Shaw, Patricia A. (1980). ''Theoretical Issues in Dakota Phonology and Morphology''. Garland Publ: New York. pp. ix + 396. * Shaw, Patricia A. (2004). Reduplicant order and identity: Never trust a Salish CVC either?. In D. Gerdts and L. Matthewson (Eds.), ''Studies in Salish linguistics in honor of M. Dale Kinkade''. University of Montana Occasional Papers in Linguistics (Vol. 17). Missoula, MT: University of Montana. * * * Watters, David E. (2002). ''A grammar of Kham''. Cambridge grammatical descriptions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . * Wilbur, Ronnie B. (1973). The phonology of reduplication. Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois. (Also published by Indiana University Linguistics Club in 1973, republished 1997.)

University of Graz The University of Graz (german: link=no, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, ), located in Graz, Austria, is the largest and oldest university in Styria, as well as the second-largest and second-oldest university in Austria. History The univers ...

La réduplication à m dans l’arabe parlé à Mardin
Grammar Linguistic morphology Phonology