Re: Evolutionary Sequence

On Thursday, January 15, 2004, at 09:18  PM, Rob Haden wrote:
> 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
In Hebrew it's used for diminutive:
qatan (small) > qatantan (tiny)
yaroq (green) > yeraqraq (greenish)

But I don't think it's very productive in Modern Hebrew.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "laqahhti maqlo shel ish `iveir
   veta`amti hapri shegadal began `eiden
   keshe'eitzei' mikan lo' ematzei' asham
   akh hata`am befi `od nis'ar, `od nish'ar"
      ~ '`eiden' mei'eit guster