Definition and Examples of Reduplicatives in English

A reduplicative is a word or lexeme (such as mama) that contains two identical or very similar parts. Words such as these are also called  tautonyms.  The morphological and phonological process of forming a compound word by repeating all or part of it is known as reduplication. The repeated element is called a reduplicant. David Crystal wrote in the second edition of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language: Items with identical spoken constituents, such as  goody-goody  and  din-din, are rare. What is normal is for a single  vowel  or  consonant  to change between the first constituent and the second, such as  see-saw  and  walkie-talkie.Reduplicatives are used in a variety of ways. Some simply imitate sounds:  ding-dong, bow-wow. Some suggest alternative movements:  flip-flop, ping-pong. Some are disparaging:  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹dilly-dally, wishy-washy. And some intensify meaning:  teeny-weeny, tip-top. Reduplication is not a major means of creating lexemes in English, but it is perhaps the most unusual one.(Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003) Characteristics Reduplicatives can rhyme  but arent required to. They likely have a  figure of sound  represented in them, as alliteration (repetition of consonants) and assonance (repetition of vowel sounds) would be common in a word or phrase that doesnt change much among its parts, such as in this by Patrick B. Oliphant, Correct me if Im wrong: the gizmo is connected to the flingflang connected to the watzis, watzis connected to the doo-dad connected to the ding dong.† According to Gift of the Gob: Morsels of English Language History by Kate Burridge: The majority of...reduplicated forms involve a play on the rhyme of words. The result can be a combination of two existing words, like  flower-power  and  culture-vulture, but more usually one of the elements is meaningless, as in  superduper, or both, as in  namby-pamby. Now, it struck me the other day that a large number of these nonsense jingles begin with h. Think of  hoity-toity, higgledy-piggledy, hanky-panky, hokey-pokey, hob-nob, heebie-jeebies, hocus-pocus, hugger-mugger, hurly-burly, hodge-podge, hurdy-gurdy, hubbub, hullabaloo,  harumscarum, helter-skelter, hurry-scurry, hooley-dooley  and dont forget  Humpty Dumpty. And these are just a few!(HarperCollins Australia, 2011) Reduplicatives differ from  echo words in that there are fewer rules in forming reduplicatives. Borrowed Reduplicatives The history of reduplicatives in English starts in the Early Modern English (EMnE) era, which was about the end of the 15th century. In the third edition of A Biography of the English Language,  C.M. Millward and Mary Hayes noted:   Reduplicated words do not appear at all until the EMnE period. When they do appear, they are usually direct borrowings from some other language, such as Portuguese dodo (1628), Spanish grugru (1796) and motmot (1651), French haha ditch (1712), and Maori kaka (1774). Even the nursery words mama and papa were borrowed from French in the 17th century. So-so is probably the sole native formation from the EMnE period; it is first recorded in 1530.(Wadsworth, 2012) Morphological and Phonological Sharon Inkelas wrote in Studies on Reduplication that there are two separate methods, producing two different types or subsets of reduplication: phonological duplication and morphological reduplication. Below we list some criteria for determining when a copying effect is reduplication and when it is phonological duplication. (1) Phonological duplication serves a phonological purpose; morphological reduplication serves a morphological process (either by being a word-formation process itself or by enabling another word-formation process to take place...).(2) Phonological duplication involves a single phonological segment...; morphological reduplication involves an entire morphological constituent (affix, root, stem, word), potentially truncated to a prosodic constituent (mora, syllable, foot).(3) Phonological duplication involves, by definition, phonological identity, while morphological reduplication involves semantic, not necessarily phonological, identity.(4) Phonological duplication is local (a copied consonant is a copy of the closest consonant, for example), while morphological reduplication is not necessarily local.​  (Morphological Doubling Theory: Evidence for Morphological Doubling in Reduplication. ed. by Bernhard Hurch. Walter de Gruyter, 2005)

At the Minds Limit by Jean Amery Book Report - 2302 Words

Joseph Chaput Book Report I At The Mind’s Limit: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and its Realities By Jean Amery â€Å"At The Mind’s Limit† is a series of essays written by Jean Amery, a German born Jew who survived the holocaust, who gives the reader a very interesting perspective into the mind of a persecuted Jew from 1935 forward. Amery does not consider himself a religious Jew or one who follows any Jewish traditions. In fact, he did not know that Yiddish was a language until he was 18. So Amery describes the events leading up to and following the holocaust through the eyes of an â€Å"intellectual† and tries to find out whether being an â€Å"intellectual† helped or hindered his mental and spiritual capacity as he experienced†¦show more content†¦It was challenging to try to find security in being a part of the Jewish community when there was not only the fear of persecution but also sometimes a lack of enthusiasm for other Jews to try and come together when they were faced with their own problems. These people who were not only cast o ut of their homeland, but also had to hide their cultural background in order to survive, truly know what it means to be homeless. They were not well received in the countries they immigrated to neither by native Jews nor non-Jews. They did not feel help from anyone in the world and therefore felt no sense of security. Amery says that â€Å"Genuine homesickness† was when he looked back at his life before any of this had happened and felt self-contempt and his hatred for his loss of self. These emotions are intensified when â€Å"Traditional homesickness† or nostalgia for the way things were kicks in, causing Amery to hate himself more for wanted to be back in the land that turned against him. He goes on to claim that people need a sense of home, and that without a sense of home people age very poorly. He says that young men are always seeing themselves as men of the future, while old men see themselves as what they were in the past. One grows with his â€Å"home † and needs that growth in order to look back on his life and be satisfied with being a man of the past. The fifth section, Resentment, discusses

White body, wheels shining, dust flying Free Essays

White body, wheels shining, dust flying. This is how it began. Sam Blake’s new top of the range saloon pulls into Lunpona, he can see it now, tall factories, noisy equipment and more money then he dared think of. We will write a custom essay sample on White body, wheels shining, dust flying or any similar topic only for you Order Now Only something stood in his way, the people of this dirty, foul, black tribe village. Far removed from his civilized western world these people lived in near squalor. He thought back to his wife and children in their palatial manor house on the outskirts of the city, if he could get this over with quick enough he would be back there inside a week. This was ingenious; instead of importing the wood for his highly successful furniture business he would ‘harvest’ natures already plentiful supply. His aim was to speak to the village elder or some such person, he wasn’t all too familiar with this bizarre black man hierarchy obsession. He wanted these village people to become his employees – they would do his dirty work, dirty work for these dirty black bastards, they would cut down the trees, prime them, sort them, and ship them to him, and all for a pittance, it couldn’t fail. There was a crowd already waiting they’d seen him across the plane some time ago. He stepped out of his car, his brand new, shoes messing themselves in the mud that was the yet to be converted base for his idea. He took a cigar from his holder, his movements smooth and graceful. A host of small children had already gathered by his car, inspecting every nook. A tall, old man, with a wizened face, and mysterious eyes approached, before he could speak, Sam launched into his much practiced speech; â€Å"Sam Blake, of Blake and Associate.† He says gruffly. â€Å"Welcome to Lunpona mate,† said the Aboriginal, â€Å"what business brings ya here Sam?† â€Å"Very important business, business that could make a village like yours quite rich. Providing you don’t mind a bit of change.† â€Å"Yeah? That so is it bud?† The old mans eyes gaze over Sam, probing him, seeing into him. The chief turns and says something in his native tongue, the crowd parts and goes back to their business. Sam is led into a humpy (shack like building) at the head of the village. As they pass through the village, they walk over a rickety old wooden bridge. Bright roughly drawn, markings adorn it, it seems steeped in spiritual history. Sam is offered a seat, they sit down to talk, an open fire to their right blazes away, some form of native coffee or some such drink is brought by a good looking aboriginal girl, tall and slender, deep black eyes, full lips, and a mat of thick, black, long hair. Blackness forms a harmony of beauty. They talk solidly for a couple of hours, until Basra (the chief) rose. â€Å"Wait here.† He said as he turned and walked out. Soon he returned, the look on his face said it all. â€Å"I’m sorry Mr. Blake, my people, they do not see sense in your deal.† â€Å"What! You must be kidding me you stupid old black prick! You go and tell them again. This will go ahead whether they like it or not. You idiotic wogs should learn some sense† â€Å"How dare you? Get out of my bloody village now, you ignorant bastard!† With this Sam pulled out his gun, he always brought it with him when he came to places like this, he never did trust these types of people. Before he could think in his enraged state, he pointed the gun straight to the man’s chest and loosed a bullet. With a deafening noise the bullet left the gun, and hit the man in the right side of his chest, he was knocked to the ground. As he struggled for breath, he spoke these words that cut through Sam like a razor blade; â€Å"You do not realize the full impact of your actions, ignorant white men such as you are careless and have no regard. A curse upon you and your operations after my death. Be gone with you.† With this his eyes closed and he drew his terminal breath. Sam’s rage turned to perfect fear. By now people were arriving from all over the village, he ran. He ran faster then he had ever before, he could feel something pursuing him, not human, not physical. He ran to his car, and fled. On his way back he was shaken, scared, and tired. He stopped off at a hotel, and booked in for the night. Too tired to go for a drink he went straight to bed. All night he tossed and turned, his dreams were plagued by visions of woodarchis. Visions of his own death. He didn’t get much sleep that night, tossing, turning, waking every hour or so. In the morning he woke up, washed, and decided to go for his breakfast. As he slipped on his shoe, the mud was still there, clinging, a reminder of the brutality. He took his other shoe in his hands, n tried in vein to brush off the mud. It was useless, something told him he wasn’t going to forget this. Just as he was about to put his shoe on he heard the last words of Basra, the curse. All of a sudden he felt a pang on pain in his foot, he’d been bitten, he looked down, it was a black widow spider, she crawled from his shoe and up his trouser leg, twice more inflicting her deadly poison. He knew that a bite from such a spider was fatal, but three in quick succession would have you dead inside 20 minutes. Thoughts rushed through his head, where was he? The nearest hospital was 60km away at best, unless the hotel had any antidotes he was in trouble. After get over the initial pain he tried to get up and walk. But he couldn’t his leg was swelling and the pain immense. He reached for his phone, and as he dialed the battery failed on him. He could hear the curse again, as if carried on the wind. He cried out for help in desperation. But nobody came. He was slipping in and out of consciousness. He looked at his watch, it was 45 minutes since he’d been bitten. He slipped out of consciousness for the last time. As if by some supernatural force the old mans voice echoed through his head; â€Å"Samuel Blake,† it said, â€Å"you are suffering, not vengeance for my death alone, oh no, but for all the of the wrongs white man has done black man. Your corporate enterprises, and your money-making schemes don’t belong in the bush. Keep them to your cities. Have your suburbia and be happy. You keep your ‘civilized’ lives, and we’ll keep out ancestral traditions. May you learn a lesson with your life.† With this he passed. A lesson indeed learnt. And financed by his own life. How to cite White body, wheels shining, dust flying, Papers