Siouan-Catawban reduplication - a bunch of questions...

[david costa]

I would predict that reduplication is present in every Algonquian language other than Blackfoot. It's quite common in all the Algonquian languages I'm familiar with, tho some languages use it more than others. Proto-Algonquian appears to have had several different patterns of reduplications that carried with them important semantic differences. However, the whole topic hasn't been systematically studied for very long, or for many of the languages. Many grammars ignore it or barely cover it.

Dave

>> One language that does not seem to have any type of reduplication is
>> Blackfoot.  This is probably due to the fact that Blackfoot has a small
>> phoneme inventory and fairly long morphemes.  Reduplication would just
>> create confusion.
>
>But I think reduplication is fairly common in Algonquian as a whole,
>right?  Maybe not quite as pervasive as in Dakotan or, say, Indonesian!