LL-L "Morphology" 2003.08.12 (03) [E]

Tue Aug 12 19:32:11 UTC 2003

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
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From: burgdal32admin <burgdal32 at pandora.be>
Subject: LL-L "Idiomatica" 2003.08.11 (01) [E]

> From: Allison Turner-Hansen <hallison at gte.net>
> Subject: "Idiomatica"
>
> Dear Lowlanders,
>
>  Luc Hellinckx wrote:
>
>      I've heard numerous West-Flemish speakers emphasize an adjective,
> not
> through the use
> of a separate word (like "sti(j)f", "erg", "heel", "braa(f)", "wreed",
> "nij(di)g" or
> even "mega" *s*...) but rather would they repeat the adjective:
> "Het is niet koud koud" (D) thus meaning "It's not very cold"
> or
> "Dienen auto is niet diere diere" (D) for "That car is not very
> expensive".
>
>    My Friends,
>      This would sound completely normally to me in my variety of
> English.
> Should someone ask, "How's the weather?"
> I might say, "Well, it's not COLD cold," with louder voice and higher
> pitch
> for the first instance of the adjective.  While this might, I think,
> be more
> common with negations, I have heard it with positive assertions, too:
> "Allison dyed her hair!  Have you seen it?"  "Yes!  It's RED red!"  (As
> opposed to sort of red, coppery red, etc.)
>
> Best,
> Allison Turner-Hansen

Dear Allison and Luc,

Just back home again,  I did not had the time to read all the e-mails.
I just browsed a bit.
At first, when I was reading the sentences of Luc, I thought (as a
native  West-Fleming) that this  was something I had never heard of.
But with Allison's remarks, it all became very  clear!
Indeed, what Allison says is the same thing as one can hear in V.
The first word of the two has to be said stronger, otherwise it doesn't
sound right (or  it doesn't mean anything).
V: 't I niet DIERE diere (E: it is not so expencive that f.i. I can't
buy it)
V: 't I ROÔD roôd (E: it's really a strong red)
V: 't I nie KOUD koud (E: It's not exactly very cold, but it tends
towards it)
V: 't I nie BLOÔT  bloôt (E: It's not totally nude)

which makes it a bit different than Luc's translation.

groetjes
luc vanbrabant
oekene

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Morphology

Allison, Lowlanders,

Thanks for mentioning what looks like repetition (quoted by Luc above),
Allison.

Does not the same apply to nouns at times?  Examples:

"OK, we have a date.  Well, I don't mean a date date."
(explaining that it is an agreed meeting, not a romantic date)

"He used to make movies." "You mean movies movies?"
(asking if it is home movies or professionally producted ones)

In these instances, it seems, the first item could be replaced by "real"
("real date," "real movies"), perhaps also in the case of adjectives and
adverbs ("real(ly) red," "real(ly) cold").

In Afrikaans, this repetitive construction is used extensively, also as a
type of intensifier; e.g., _Kom gou-gou!_ 'Come (quick-quick=) really
quicky!',
   'Come right away!'
_Se hand was koud-koud_ 'Her hand was (cold-cold=) very cold',
   'Her hand was icy cold.'
_Ons het 'n groot-groot probleem_ 'We have an (big-big=) enormous problem.'
_In vorige eeue is prinse en prinsesse reeds klein-klein vir mekaar
uitgesoek_
   'In former centuries, princes and princesses used to be chosen for
   each other (small-small=) already at a very early childhood age.

I am not sure what the restrictions are.  My hunch is that it works mostly
with monosyllablic adjectives and adverbs, though I seem to remember reading
_lekker-lekker_ (very delicious, 'very nice).

Take another look at _koud-koud_ and _groot-groot_.  In English, too, you
could say things like "He touched me with his cold, cold hand" or "Now we
have a big, big problem."  What you can not do is doubling in predicatives
(*"His hand was cold, cold," *"This problem is big, big").

Perhaps there is a common thread among the variations: doubling =
intensifying.

Incidentally, intensifying adjectives and adverbs by means of doubling is
fairly common also in other language groups and families.  In Turkic
languages (which have highly agglutinative structures), such doubled forms
are lexicalized.  These mostly denote intensive color.  The adjective is
preceded by repetition of its first syllable followed by (_-b_ >) _-p_, an
ancient linking morpheme; e.g., Uyghur (Uighur, used mostly in China) _aq_
'white' > (_ap+aq_ >) _appaq_ "really white" = 'pure white', 'snowy white',
_qizil_ 'red' > (_qı+p+qızıl_ >) _qipqizil_ "really red" = 'bright red'
(Turkish _ak_ > _apak_ and _kızıl_ > _kıpkızıl_ respectively).  I see this
as having gone a couple of steps father in this sort of development.  The
fact that it is known and pretty much consistent in (almost?) all Turkic
languages (from Europe to Northeastern Siberia and China) seems to indicate
that this construction is quite ancient.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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