Re: Degrees of comparation

Jesse Bangs wrote:

> > Reduplication in Uatakassí generally conveys both of these, that is,
> > ziikú "beautiful", ziikuziikú "extremely beautiful" OR "too
> > beautiful",  depending on context.
> >
> > But, there are some words that are often reduplicated with no
> > significance at all, particularly monosyllabic adjectives, for instance,
> > _tiá_ "learned", _tiatiá_ "learned", NOT "extremely learned" or "too
> > learned".  Color terms are often like that, like the (slightly
> > irregular) mlallál < mlál "blue".  The _m_ was dropped because /lml/ is
> > a bit of a tongue-twisting combination.  :-)
>
> Eh, why?  Just for fun?  Linguistic perversity?
But natural languages *are* perverse. No subsystem of a language will ever
be entirely perfect or consistent in its organization.  In this case, it's very easy
to imagine that the reduplication was a productive process at one stage of the
language, later ceased to be productive, but left lots of words that still bore the
mark of that process.  These words could then be available for semantic shifts
like the one Nik describes.

===================================
Thomas Wier | AIM: trwier

"Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
  entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
  erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos

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