Re: Evolutionary Sequence

On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 12:33:04 EST, David Peterson <ThatBlueCat@...>
wrote:

>Highly intriguing.   An added note about Semitic morphology (or at least
>Arabic), is that many of the roots used to be biconsonantal, and
reduplication was
>a *big* thing in the older (i.e., no longer existing) languages, like
Middle
>Egyptian.   That could add another wrinkle.
Reduplication seems to be a common device in (mostly) isolating languages.
Even in English, one can tell a distinction between "the big cat" and "the
big big cat" -- the latter has a more intensive connotation to it.
Reduplication seems to serve the following functions:

1. Intensive connotation (verbs and adjectives or qualitative nouns)
2. Iterative connotation (verbs)
3. Plural connotation (in languages that have no grammatical plural marker
(s))
4. Collective connotation (" ")

- Rob

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