Re: THEORY: Reduplication

> In a message dated 05/20/2002 05.51.08 PM, Jeffrey@HENNING.COM writes:
>
> >I've been wondering what I should do with reduplication.  I've been afraid
> >that it sounds to speakers of Western European languages rather childish
> >and pidgin-like.
Missed the original post to this, but if you're looking for a good
but very theory-bound way to introduce yourself to reduplication,
you could try Rene Kager's _Optimality Theory_ which has a chapter
on it, although you might be forced to read all the previous
chapters to understand it if you don't know much about the OT
framework.  John McCarthy and Alan Prince have a now classic OT paper
called "Faithfulness and Reduplicative Identity" which can be
accessed here in .PDF format:

<http://home.uchicago.edu/~goh/coursefiles/phon2_02.html>

I actually love reduplication, though.  Phaleran uses it quite
frequently for pluralization, both in nouns and to some extent
even on verbs.  (Those posts can be seen in the archive at :

<http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0108A&L=conlang&P=R14596>
<http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0112B&L=conlang&P=R49079>

One set of reduplicative data that I've been working on recently
comes from Luiseno:

       Singular  Plural
(1) a. tá:nat    tá:tanat       'blanket(s)'
    b. pú:la     pu:pulam       'shaman(s)'
    c. nó:ta     no:nota        'ceremonial clan chief(s)'
(2) a. né:Smal   né:neSlam      'old woman / old women'
    b. túkmal    tú:tukmal      'basket(s)'
    c. pé:SliS   pepiSliS       'dish(es)'
(3) a. naxánmal  nánxalum       'old man / old men'
    b. SuNá:l    SúSNalum       'woman / women'
    c. nawí:l    nánwiyam       'young woman / young women'
(4) a. ahí:tSum  ahí:hitSum     'orphan(s)'
    b. ya?áS / yá:S  yá:yitSam  'man / men'

I don't really have time to go into all the details, but some
interesting questions about this kind of reduplication (if indeed
these all have the same reduplicative morpheme, which is not at
all clear) are as follows:

(a) Is the reduplicant a prefix, or an infix?  The superficial
answer based on (1) seems to be a prefix, with the a CVV template
(or in OT terms, it must be a bimoraic foot). However, look at
(4a).  Here, the reduplication appears clearly to be acting like
an infix. What -- sometimes a prefix, sometimes a suffix? Yes!
This is in fact quite similar to Tagalog's infixation of the
affix -um-, which surfaces sometimes as a prefix, sometimes as
an infix.

(b) If the reduplicant is a prefix (so that /taa-taanat/ is the UR),
why does the base shorten?
(c) How do we account for syncope in (3)?

And so forth.  I have some answers for these questions, which I may
post at some time in the future.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier          "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
Chicago, IL 60637     Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers

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