Bonus 49: The episode-episode (Reduplication)
Added 2021-03-04 22:28:26 +0000 UTCHave you eaten salad-salad, drunk milk-milk, or read a book-book lately? Or are you thinking something more along the lines of "salad, schmalad! milk, schmilk! books, schmooks!"? In either case, you're producing reduplication!
In this episode, Gretchen and Lauren get enthusiastic about how languages can repeat all or part of a word in order to convey a different meaning, a process known as reduplication. We look at different forms and meanings of reduplication across various languages through the World Atlas of Linguistic Structures, why it's not called just "duplication", and delve into English reduplication via a classic among entertaining linguistics papers, the Salad-Salad Paper (technically entitled Contrastive Focus Reduplication in English).
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Here are the links mentioned in this episode:
- Reduplication Wikipedia entry
- WALS numbers on reduplication
- What reduplication does across languages
- Shm-reduplication
- Mokilese
- Harrison on reduplication in Mokilese
- Tuvan
- Turkic
- Russia
- The Salad Salad paper
- Contrastive focus reduplication Wikipedia entry
- Corpus of the Salad Salad paper examples
You can listen to this episode on this page, via the Patreon RSS or download the mp3. A transcript of this episode is available as a Google Doc. Lingthusiasm is also on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com or chat to us on the Patreon page. Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic. Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.
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Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producer is Sarah Dopierala, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles
Comments
Reminds me of a Community Channel video called "Does he LIKE-LIKE me?" https://youtu.be/Wv50TLkAYfw
2021-10-23 20:58:51 +0000 UTCJust like a few other folks have said, I would understand “I didn’t go TO to Montreal” as meaning either “I drove through it on a road trip” or “I had a layover there,” but that wouldn’t be my first choice on how to phrase it, myself. It feels a little awkward, but still comprehensible. If someone asked me “Have you been to Montreal?”, but I had only changed planes there, I would be much more likely to say “I haven’t BEEN THERE been there.” Oddly enough, reduplicating the whole phrase “been there” feels a lot more natural than just reduplicating “been,” though I would still understand what someone meant if they just reduplicated “been.” Also, I’ve hit semantic satiation for “been” now, lol.
Scout
2021-05-17 15:00:50 +0000 UTCThe m- is the reduplicative bit, but I mostly heard the language feature used by Russian speakers with Bashkir or Tatar backgrounds.
2021-03-27 15:59:31 +0000 UTCIt's just about time here in the Northern hemisphere for my favourite Bashkir/central Asian reduplication: shashlik-mashlik! I'd characterise it as affectionate diminutive for a nice little bit of barbecue and related food.
2021-03-27 15:57:10 +0000 UTCWhoa, this thing that I do when I talk to my dog actually has a name! (Time for a walky-walk! Want a snacky-snack? Let's go upstairs and take a nappy-nap. Would you like a little bitey-bite? Here's some yummy-yums for you! Ready for sleepy-sleeps? Come on, puppy-pups! ... His English is coming along nicely.)
2021-03-18 01:13:01 +0000 UTCI was also going to say that 'I went to Montreal but not TO to Montreal' means that I was there physically, but I didn't leave the airport/train station etc!
2021-03-12 08:35:35 +0000 UTCAwesome episode! For me, “I’m going to Montreal but I’m not going TO to Montreal” would mean that I have a layover but I’m not visiting the city. For me, reduplicating the name of the city would contrast going to some bland suburb or something rather than some authentic or quintessential part of the city.
2021-03-09 20:26:11 +0000 UTCI feel like I've heard "THE The Book" used to differentiate the Bible from other books. It's been so long since I left the church I'm not sure if that's a real memory tho.
2021-03-05 23:57:50 +0000 UTCHebrew has some great reduplication: Full reduplication to indicate 'one at a time' e.g. אחד אחד /exad exad/ "one by one"; ילד ילד /jeled jeled/ "one child at a time" Partial reduplication, usually for diminutives (or less intense qualities) E.g. סגול /sagol/ "purple" - סגלגל /sgalgal/ "light purple (or purplish)"; חמוץ /xamuts/ "sour" - חמצמץ /xamatsmats/ "tangy, a little sour"; כלב /kelev/ "dog" - כלבלב /klavlav/ "puppy, doggo" The full reduplication pattern for "one thing at a time, one by one" is fully productive, as far as I can tell, whereas the partial reduplication diminutive is much more restricted
Jonathan Abramsohn
2021-03-05 15:14:12 +0000 UTCGreat episode! Funnily enough, it's titled "The episode-episode", even though it's not an episode-episode. It's a bonus-episode 😅
Jonathan Abramsohn
2021-03-05 14:41:26 +0000 UTC
