reduplication in Siouan languages

[Jess Tauber]

That Iroquoian makes no grammatical use of reduplication seemed evident from
the grammars and dictionaries I've seen. I also didn't get the impression,
from Mithun's article on Iroquoian expressives, that these undergo
reduplication either, merely simple full-stress repetition (which seems to be
rather common in polysynthetic languages when they have any expressive forms
at all outside the verb inventory).

As there appears to be an implicational hierarchy extending from the point of
lexicalization of expressive/ideophonic forms all the way to grammatical
elements with regard to the how's, where's, etc. of reduplication, it will be
interesting to see just how much of this correlates with typological factors
that on the face of it would seem to have no logical connection- I've already
noted a number linking expressives.
Much may fall under the heading of "holistic typology". Over time one would
then expect to see increasing context-sensitivity as reduplicative
constructions themselves become frozen, and attrition works its magic.

Siouan, under this model, would be far along the way of losing both
expressives (as such) and reduplication.

Jess Tauber
zylogy at aol.com
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