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"English language Reduplication."
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Extra-grammatical Morphology in English
Extra-grammatical morphology is a hitherto neglected area of research, highly marginalised because of its irregularity and unpredictability. Yet many neologisms in English are formed by means of extra-grammatical mechanisms, such as abbreviation, blending and reduplication, which therefore deserve both greater attention and more systematic study. This book analyses such phenomena.
eBook
Sentence Repetition as a Clinical Marker of Developmental Language Disorder: Evidence From Arabic
Purpose: Research on the typical and impaired grammatical acquisition of Arabic is limited. This study systematically examined the morphosyntactic abilities of Arabic-speaking children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD) using a novel sentence repetition task. The usefulness of the task as an indicator of DLD in Arabic was determined. Method: A LITMUS (Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings) sentence repetition task was developed in Palestinian Arabic (LITMUS-SR-PA-72) and administered to 30 children with DLD (M = 61.50 months, SD = 11.27) and 60 age-matched typically developing (TD) children (M = 63.85 months, SD = 10.16). The task targeted grammatical structures known to be problematic for Arabic-speaking children with DLD (language specific) and children with DLD across languages (language independent). Responses were scored using binary, error, and structural scoring methods. Results: Children with DLD scored below TD children on the LITMUS-SR-PA-72, in general, and in the repetition of language-specific and language-independent structures. The frequency of morphosyntactic errors was higher in the DLD group relative to the TD group. Despite the large similarity of the type of morphosyntactic errors between the two groups, some atypical errors were exclusively produced by the DLD group. The three scoring methods showed good diagnostic power in the discrimination between children with DLD and children without DLD. Conclusions: Sentence repetition was an area of difficulty for Palestinian Arabic-speaking children with DLD. The DLD group demonstrated difficulties with language-specific and language-independent structures, particularly complex sentences with noncanonical word order. Most grammatical errors made by the DLD group resembled those of the TD group and were mostly omissions or substitutions of grammatical affixes or omissions of function words. SR appears to hold promise as a good indicator for the presence or absence of DLD in Arabic. Further validation of these findings using population-based studies is warranted.
Journal Article
Reduplication at the Word Level
Contrary to earlier approaches, this study suggests that Modern Greek (MG) is a language that exhibits reduplication, in the form of Total Reduplication (TR). The analysis addresses the morphosyntactic, phonological, semantic and pragmatic aspects of the types of TR in MG, and the constraints and/or preferences of speakers concerning their use. The typology of TR focuses on four cross-linguistically common meanings/functions, identified as the intensive, the contrastive, the distributive and the iterative. Part of the analysis of these functional types is based on data that come from two experiments with native speakers; the one confirms or refines earlier assumptions on to the relation of the above meanings/functions with word classes and semantic features of words; the other clarifies the idea of prosodic unity in TR and sheds light into various aspects of the relation of intonation with the interpretation of TR constructions.
Also, the formal and lexical constraints on the use of TR are discussed with respect to the status of TR (particularly, the \"grammatical\"-\"lexical\" opposition). In general, TR seems to be a borderline case between grammar and the lexicon and a heterogeneous category, in that it involves grammatical, pragmatic and lexical construction types. However, the constructions in question meet highly specific criteria for their status as TR types and the process is productive and considerably regularized (rule-governed) in MG. In this sense, TR should not be merely taken as a strategy for \"emphasis\", but should be systematically represented in grammar textbooks.
eBook
Contrastive focus reduplication and the modification puzzle
In this short paper we present a so far unnoticed syntactic constraint on contrastive focus reduplication (CR), a phenomenon that restricts the semantics of the reduplicated element to a prototypical meaning (but has other uses as well): The CR construction cannot be modified. In the case of nominal CR, this means that adjectival modification is blocked, as in *black COFFEE-coffee. We present data from English and German to support our claim and highlight how earlier accounts fail to capture the syntactic restriction. We then provide a sketch of an analysis couched with a Cartographic framework, tentatively proposing that CR results either (i) from cyclical movement of phrasal material through the specifiers of functional projections into the specifier of a focus phrase or (ii) by directly moving phrasal material into the specifier of a focus phrase.
Journal Article
Word-Based or Root-Based: Diminutives in Najdi Arabic
Lexeme and root are the prominent, competing morphological approaches that account for the building of words. This study presents a sample of diminutive and super-diminutive forms of native Arabic words and loans from English in the Buraydawi dialect of Najdi Arabic (BNA). Nominals were randomly gathered and transcribed. Unlike consonants, the vocalic melodies of diminutives in BNA reveal a high degree of inconsistency. This can be illustrated with the diminution of d
e
rdʒ “drawer,” which yields
ɪ
dr
aɪjɪ
dʒ,
ɪ
dr
eɪ
dʒ, and
ɪ
dri:ri:dʒ. The consistency of consonants versus the inconsistency of vowels in diminutives supports the traditional, consonantal root-based view of word formation in this dialect of Arabic. Some patterns of partial morphological reduplication are shown to favor the root-based theory as well. For instance, partial reduplication often targets consonantal segments, while vowels vary or shift. Even in borrowed forms from English, the same tendencies emerge, where consonantal elements are consistently retained, indicating that root-based processes extend beyond the native lexicon. The findings shed light on how BNA speakers construct diminutives and reveal the underlying morphological organization. Overall, the data weigh in on the debate of whether the lexeme or the root is more effective in accounting for word formation in Arabic.
Journal Article
The Translation of Repetition in Arabic Religious Discourse Into English: The Case of the Quran
Despite growing interest in the study of the rendition of stylistic devices in Arabic literary texts, relatively little has been published on the transfer of Arabic rhetorical features into English. This study explores the treatment (or lack thereof) of different forms of repetition in Arabic religious discourse when translated into English. The prominence and resonance of recurrent forms and phraseology in Arabic literary and religious texts, especially the Quran—the Arabic language's unsurpassed masterpiece—demand that translators handle this issue with utmost delicacy. Quran translators, coming from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, vary in their approaches to repetition, ranging from literal (faithful) translation to semantically (contextually) driven or more communicative (albeit loosely equivalent) renderings. Repetition in classical Arabic takes various forms: some are conspicuous (e.g., lexical and phrase repetition), while others are less pronounced (e.g., pattern and semantic repetition). Analyzing how repetition is rendered in English reveals a discernible pattern: the more salient the repetition, the more likely translators are to retain it, whereas subtler forms are often omitted. This is due to the mismatch between Arabic and English in their treatment of repetition. While Arabic employs repetition to consolidate key concepts, enhance cohesion and coherence, and create aesthetic harmony, English generally favors conciseness. Consequently, Quranic translators sometimes struggle to replicate the Arabic style, leading to a loss of rhetorical impact. This study highlights the challenges posed by these linguistic differences and underscores the need for strategies that balance fidelity to the source text with readability in the target language.
Journal Article
Amodal phonology
Does knowledge of language transfer spontaneously across language modalities? For example, do English speakers, who have had no command of a sign language, spontaneously project grammatical constraints from English to linguistic signs? Here, we address this question by examining the constraints on doubling. We first demonstrate that doubling (e.g. panana; generally: ABB) is amenable to two conflicting parses (identity vs. reduplication), depending on the level of analysis (phonology vs. morphology). We next show that speakers with no command of a sign language spontaneously project these two parses to novel ABB signs in American Sign Language. Moreover, the chosen parse (for signs) is constrained by the morphology of spoken language. Hebrew speakers can project the morphological parse when doubling indicates diminution, but English speakers only do so when doubling indicates plurality, in line with the distinct morphological properties of their spoken languages. These observations suggest that doubling in speech and signs is constrained by a common set of linguistic principles that are algebraic, amodal and abstract.
Journal Article
A Case Study on the Acquisition of Plurality in a Bilingual Malay-English Context-bound Child
The early development of simultaneous bilinguals has been at the core of heated controversy since the mid-seventies. The Unitary Language System Hypothesis by Volterra and Taeschner saw early development as a single language system gradually diverging into two systems. On the contrary, Meisel (1989), De Houwer (1990) and Paradis and Genesee (1996) suggested the early separation of two linguistic systems. Neither position, however, considered language environmental conditions constraining development as key variables. This paper aims to show that the predominant environmental languages to which the Malay-English bilingual child in the current study was alternately exposed might have played an important role in shaping the child’s acquisition of plurality in each language. Throughout the period of investigation (from age 3;4 to 3;10 and at 4;8) the child’s interactions were regularly audio and video recorded. The current study focuses on the development of plural marking in a simultaneous Malay-English bilingual child. Interestingly, at a point when English was environmentally predominant, the child would occasionally use the English plural suffix -s on Malay nouns. After moving back to Malaysia, the child used reduplication to mark plurals in both languages. The findings of this study indicate that the predominant linguistic environment in which the child grows and develops plays an important role in shaping the child’s language production.
Journal Article
Normalization or creation? A corpus-based study of normalization in the Chinese translation of English children’s literature
Based on the English-Chinese Parallel Corpus of Children’s Literature and the Corpus of Chinese Children’s Literature, this study investigates the feature of normalization in the Chinese translation of English children’s literature. Normalization refers to the adaptation of foreign features in the source text to comply with the cultural and linguistic norms of the target culture. The study analyzes both macro and micro levels of language features in translated children’s literature, comparing them with original Chinese and English texts. The findings reveal a clear trend towards normalization, evidenced by shorter sentences, increased repetition of high-frequency words, a lower frequency of hapax legomena, and a higher textual readability in translated Chinese versions. Furthermore, linguistic structures such as reduplication, modal particles, “把” (BA), and “得” (DE) constructions are found to occur at rates comparable to or significantly higher than those in the original Chinese corpus. This paper argues that normalization is a creative outcome, molded by translators aligning with reader expectations, conscientiously considering the psychological characteristics of child readers, and adapting to social, cultural, and market influences. The study contributes to understanding linguistic features of translated children’s literature, sheds light on translation universals, and underscores the dynamic interplay between normalization and translator creativity.
Journal Article