reduplication
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English
Etymology
From re- + duplication.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ɹɪ.djuː.plɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/
- (US) IPA(key): /ɹəˌd(j)u.pləˈkeɪ.ʃən/, /ɹi-/, /ɹɪ-/, /-plɪ-/, /-ʃɪn/
- Rhymes: -eɪʃən
Noun
reduplication (countable and uncountable, plural reduplications)
- (linguistics) The act of, or an instance of, reduplicating.
- 1958, Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 256:
- Her Malay was the Malay of the Staate of Lanchap [...] and she spoke it fierily, with crisp glottal checks, with much bubbling reduplication.
- 2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, , page 10:
- Grammatically, Malay uses reduplication for plurals (burung = bird, burung-burung = birds) and thus repeated words are commonly heard in Malay speech[.]
- (anatomy) The folding or doubling of a part or organ.
Usage notes
Here are examples of reduplication in English:
| Type | Accents, etc. | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Exact | acute-null accents baby-talk-like |
bye-bye, choo-choo, night night, no-no, pee-pee, poo-poo |
| Contrastive focus reduplication | emphasis on first word | I want salad-salad, not tuna salad; milk milk, not almond milk |
| Ablaut | acute-grave accents high-low vowels front-back vowels |
chit-chat, criss-cross, knick-knack, jibber-jabber, splish-splash, zig-zag |
| Rhyming | acute-acute accents varied initials |
hokey-pokey, okey-dokey, super-duper, wingding |
| Shm-reduplication | altered initials | fancy-shmancy (or fancy-schmancy), pork-shmork, work-shmork (or work-schmerk, etc) |
Derived terms
Translations
the act of, or an instance of, reduplication
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