26.540, Review: Lang Documentation; Morphology; Typology: Goodwin Gómez, van der Voort (2014)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-26-540. Mon Jan 26 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.540, Review: Lang Documentation; Morphology; Typology: Goodwin Gómez, van der Voort (2014)

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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 15:07:37
From: Natallia Shulha [Shulga20062006 at yandex.ru]
Subject: Reduplication in Indigenous Languages of South America

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-1861.html

EDITOR: Gale  Goodwin Gómez
EDITOR: Hein  van der Voort
TITLE: Reduplication in Indigenous Languages of South America
SERIES TITLE: Brill's Studies in the Indigenous Languages of the Americas
PUBLISHER: Brill
YEAR: 2014

REVIEWER: Natallia Shulha, Belarusian State Pedagogical University named after Maxim Tank

Review's Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

The volume under review brings together contributions that aim to investigate
reduplication in “underrepresented” (p. 1) indigenous languages of South
America. The book opens with an editors’ introduction, followed by fifteen
articles that feature sixty-two languages of the region. Each paper includes
an abstract, acknowledgements, bibliographic references and a list of
abbreviations. The book closes with a name, language and subject indices. 

In the first chapter “Reduplication in South America: An introduction” Gale
Goodwin Gómez and Hein van der Voort acquaint the audience with formal and
functional aspects of reduplication, justify the scope of the volume, its
layout, corresponding terminology and approaches applied. After that, the
editors thoroughly navigate the reader through the contents and locate
featured languages on the map. 

Building on field notes and previous studies, Fernando Zúñiga and Antonio
Edmundo Díaz-Fernández demonstrate in “Reduplication in Mapuzungun: Form and
function” that reduplication is no longer productive in Mapuzungun word
formation but continues to perform its grammatical function associated with
six reduplicative patterns (verbal, adjectival, adverbial, nominal,
pronominal, plus a case-study involving a question word). The authors also
update form-function correspondences of four “purportedly productive” (p. 34)
reduplicative verbal types as well as suggest a range of meanings that verbal
reduplication may have originally conveyed in Mapuzungun.  

In “Reduplication in Andean languages” Katja Hannß and Pieter Muysken report
on a comparative study of formal and functional properties of reduplication in
nine Andean languages (Cuzqueño Quechua, Pukina, Jaqaru, Aymara, Leko, Shuar,
Uru, Cholón and  Kallawaya), revealing the degrees of areal and typological
relatedness between them with respect to reduplication by employing the
NeighborNet method. The authors challenge the claim made in “The world atlas
of language structures” (Rubino 2013) about productivity of partial
reduplication in Aymara and Jaqaru and assume a possible link between the
morphological type of the language and reduplicative patterns it employs. It
is further argued that reduplication in the Andean languages “is not a primary
means of conveying a certain concept”, but “is often reserved for expressing a
particular connotation or emphasis” (p. 73).

Using his own fieldwork corpus, Simeon Floyd writes in “Four types of
reduplication in the Cha’palaa language of Ecuador” a first detailed account
of structural and semantic properties of the so-called ideophone, predicate,
adjunct and attributive reduplication. The author suggests a gradual
independent development of the featured reduplicative types, assuming that “at
various times in its history Cha’palaa has increased the functional load its
grammar places on reduplication” (p. 108).  

 “Reduplication in Nheengatu” by Aline da Cruz provides a first systematic
record of verbal reduplication, viewed as a prefixational process used to
identify pluractionality, intensification of properties and distinction
between reciprocal and reflective constructions. The author also discovers a
direct connection of verbal reduplication with object omission and the
emergence of two different varieties of Nheengatu, namely “conservative”
Negro-Içana and “progressive” Middle Negro (p. 131).     

In “Reduplication in Hup (northwest Amazonia)” Patience Epps highlights the
iconic nature of reduplication and shows its role in forming a small class of
reduplicated forms (verbs, lexicalised nouns and attributive modifiers within
semi-lexicalised compounds) that is characterised by “a phonologically
intermediate status between mono- and multi-morphemic words” (p. 157).
Additionally, the author discusses the nature of ideophones and the
possibility of a diachronic connection between Hup repetition and
reduplication.  

In “Reduplication in the Yanomae language of northern Brazil” Gale Goodwin
Gómez distinguishes between the so-called nominalising reduplication, which
affects the roots of certain verb classes to derive nouns, and iconic
reduplication, which affects noun or verb roots to express semantic
augmentation. Both grammatical and semantic functions of Yanomae reduplication
are considered iconic. The author also touches upon the instances of
ideographic repetition, onomatopoeia and lexicalization which “represent a
significant part of the lexicon in Yanomae and are often confused with true
reduplicated forms” (p. 177).    

“Reduplication as a tool for morphological and phonological analysis in Awetí”
by Sebastian Drude focuses on general properties and semantics of
reduplicative patterns found with active and stative verbs. Being
characterised by high productivity and regularity, reduplication in Awetí is,
nonetheless, a derivational process which the author examines regarding
“nasalization, abstract morpheme-final phonemes, and the identification of the
stem and of morpheme boundaries” (p. 185). Furthermore, the author considers
the possibility of using reduplication as a means for differentiating
inflectional from derivational affixes.   

Raquel Guirardello-Damian in “Reduplication and ideophones in Trumai” compares
the two phenomena in terms of their form, semantics, phonological aspects and
a purported source of origin. It is inferred that except for “the iteration of
linguistic material” (p. 243), ideophones and reduplicative forms in the
isolate Trumai “have nothing in common” (p. 243) and might be treated
separately. In addition, the author formulates phonological rules (involving
the size of the stem and syllable pattern) that govern the occurrence and
productivity of full and partial reduplication in Trumai verbs, adjectives,
nouns, adverbs and numerals.

In “Reduplication and verbal number in Mẽbengokre” Andrés Pablo Salanova
concentrates on verbal reduplication, which is treated as a derivational
process employed among prefixation and substitution of affixes to indicate
pluractionality (namely, participant plurality and event repetition).
Reduplicative prefixes and prefix classifiers are found therein to be “in
paradigmatic opposition as markers of transitivity” (p. 264), accounting for
singular and plural actions respectively. The author’s findings also suggest
almost complete similarity between Mẽbengokre and Kaingang’s marking of verbal
number.

Wolf Dietrich’s article “Forms and functions of reduplication in Tupian
languages” combines previous studies on reduplicative phenomena in four
families of the Tupi linguistic stock (one Juruna, one Munduruku, two Tupari
and seventeen Tupi-Guarani languages). The author groups the languages
together by the type of reduplication and the presence of formal distinction
between event-internal and event-external plurality.  

“The interaction of reduplication with word classes and transitivity in
Cavineña” by Antoine Guillaume contains a comprehensive overview of thirteen
reduplicative processes (nine patterns of simple full reduplication, two
patterns of simple partial reduplication and two patterns of automatic
reduplication). The author devotes assiduous attention to the four most
productive reduplicative mechanisms that involve verbs. Syntactic properties
of Cavineña reduplication “as a word class-changing device and as a
valence-changing process” (p. 338) are considered particularly noteworthy,
with the antipassive effect being uncommon in other languages of the world. 

“Reduplication in Movima: A prosodic morphology approach” by Katharina Haude
reveals “extensive and multifunctional” (p. 371) usage of four regressive
reduplicative processes that are subject to investigation in terms of
phonological units, namely moras and feet. Alongside six grammatical functions
that reduplication productively marks in the verbal and nominal domains, the
author describes its less productive functional properties, which include,
inter alia, emphasis and prosodic well-formedness. From cross-linguistic
perspective, the interest lies in the formation of intransitive possessive
predicates through iambic foot reduplication and “hardly any direct evidence
of iconicity in Movima reduplication” (p. 370). 

Françoise Rose in “When vowel deletion blurs reduplication in Mojeño
Trinitario” refines the data on partial verbal reduplication provided in Gill
(1957) taking into account a  “pervasive vowel deletion process affecting
Trinitario” (p. 376). The findings reveal two new reduplicative patterns
associated with consonant doubling and root-final vowel deletion. As the
author rightly points out, a lack of full reduplication makes Trinitario
particularly noteworthy since it rejects a hypothesis that a language with
productive partial reduplication also has full reduplication (e.g., Rubino
2013).    

Plural marking, numeral classifiers and reduplication are well-known devices
for grammatical quantification (Xu 2012, p. 1). Therefore, it is quite natural
to assume that a language which features productive reduplication and common
nouns that lack determiners and plural-marking morphology should seek the
latter to indicate plurality. However, as Luciana R. Storto demonstrates in
“Reduplication in Karitiana (Tupi)” the existing reduplicative phenomena
affecting most verbs and a suffixal quantifier in adjectives to mark
correspondingly “pluractionality and intensification of plural quantification”
(p. 422) are only optional derivational processes. Instead of reduplication,
some verbs, copula and aspectual auxiliaries may undergo suppletion to express
plural events. The author also touches upon the nature of repetition processes
in Karitiana nouns and ideophonic phrases. 

In the final contribution “Is reduplication an areal feature of the
Guaporé-Mamoré region?” Hein van der Voort aims to answer the question by
analysing formal and functional properties of reduplication attested in
seventeen languages that represent six families and eight isolates in the
southwestern Amazon. While attributing the majority of shared reduplicative
patterns and functions to “genetic or universal factors” (pp. 457-458), the
author assumes that cross-linguistically rare valency-changing reduplication
that is featured in genetically-unrelated but neighbouring Cavineña, Movima,
Yurakaré and possibly Arikapu “may represent an areal trait” (p. 458).  

EVALUATION

As evidenced in an extensive bibliography of works compiled as part of the
Graz Reduplication Project (Hurch 2005 ff.), reduplication is no longer terra
incognita. However, it is not adequately described in some languages, which
makes the appearance of “Reduplication in indigenous languages of South
America” especially welcome. Consultation of UNESCO’s “Atlas of the World’s
Languages in Danger” (Moseley 2010) shows that the volume not only deals with
an underrepresented language sample, but also provides documentation and
description of mainly vulnerable and endangered languages of the Andean
region, the Pacific Coast, the Amazon Basin and the Central Plains.

As the editors highlight, the featured language sample might seem genetically
and geographically biased, since the Arawakan languages are under-represented
genetically, while the languages of southern Amazonia are over-represented
geographically. However, the volume effectively analyses a sample which is
diverse typologically, presenting reduplicative data across all morphological
types found on the continent. 

Being devoted predominantly to the form, functions and productivity of
reduplicative patterns, the volume reflects different positions on
‘quaestiones molestissimas’ of reduplication theory (Is reduplication
iconically-motivated or arbitrary? Should it be described in terms of
morphology or phonology? Does it represent a type of affixation or
compounding?). The volume is also distinguishable by valuable diachronic and
typological observations.

As the editors point out, most of the contributions are descriptive in nature
which might be a minor drawback for some specialist readers. However, this
volume does not suffer from the so-called “data-rich but information-poor
syndrome” (Ward et al. 1986), since reduplicative data obtained from the
description of under-studied languages has the prospect of being further
integrated into future empirical and/or cross-linguistic research of
reduplication phenomena.

Some of the findings are particularly thought provoking. The absence of total
reduplication with the presence of partial reduplication found in Trinitario
(see the article by Françoise Rose) contradicts a universal tendency and
raises many questions. If we accept the hypothesis that “the origin of partial
reduplication is (always) to be found in full reduplication” (e.g., Hurch
2005, p. 1), then it is unclear what is the genesis of partial reduplication
and its evolutionary path? Could it develop from repetition or did it spread
via language contact like many other grammatical phenomena? 

Katja Hannß and Pieter Muysken’s assumption that preferred reduplicative
patterns depend on language morphology opens new perspectives for the
typological research of reduplication. However, such hypotheses need further
empirical verification that might be ensured by employing statistical methods
(see, e.g., Shulha 2013, pp. 74-78).

Making compulsory reading for those who investigate indigenous languages of
South America, this book will also be of particular interest to researchers on
reduplication and those who conduct typological studies. Since every article
in the volume provides a thorough overview of the featured language and
explains the rules that govern reduplication, the volume should not be too
‘technical’ for the general reader with an interest in linguistics.

REFERENCES

Gill, Wayne. 1957. Trinitario grammar. Manuscript. San Lorenzo de Mojos:
Misión Nuevas Tribus. 

Hurch, Bernhard (ed.). 2005. Studies on reduplication (Empirical Approaches to
Language Typology 28). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Hurch, Bernhard. 2005 ff. Graz Database on Reduplication,
http://reduplication.uni-graz.at. (1 September, 2014.)

Moseley, Christopher (ed.). 3rd edn. 2010. Atlas of the world’s languages in
danger, http://www.unesco.org/culture/en/endangeredlanguages/atlas. (28
August, 2014.)

Rubino, Carl. 2013. Reduplication. In Matthew S. Dryer, Martin Haspelmath
(eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures Online,
http://wals.info/chapter/27. (21 August, 2014.)  

Shulha, Natal’ja V. 2013. Statisticheskij analiz reduplikativnyh obrazovanij
belorusskogo, russkogo i anglijskogo jazykov (Statistical analysis of
reduplicative formations in the Belarussian, Russian and English languages),
http://izdat.bspu.unibel.by/ebooks/pdf_Vesti/2013/03_2013/vesti_3_2013_ser_1.p
df. (5 September, 2014.)

Ward, Robert C., Loftis, Jim C. and McBride, Graham B. 1986. The “data-rich
but information-poor” syndrome in water quality monitoring. Environmental
Management 10(3). 291-297. 

Xu, Dan (ed.). 2012.  Plurality and classifiers across languages in China
(Trends in Linguistics 255). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Natallia Shulha holds a PhD in linguistics and is currently an assistant
professor of English at Maxim Tank Belarusian State Pedagogical University.
Her research has focused on revealing typological similarities and differences
in Belarusian, Russian and English with respect to reduplication.

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