Docs: Handling reduplication

Created on 27 Apr 2017  ·  4Comments  ·  Source: UniversalDependencies/docs

What's the current standard for handling reduplication? Marathi has reduplication in quite a few contexts, I've marked all of these with compound for now but I don't know how valid that is. I'll try and enumerate some examples briefly (leaving the glosses out for the duplicated phrases):

Adjectival reduplication:

  • Intensification: _lāl phula_. "Red flowers" (red flower-PL) vs. _lāl-lāl phula_. "(Very) red flowers" (also "many red flowers").

  • Implying "distributions": _ardhā lāḍū doghānnī khallā_. "Both of them ate half a sweet" (half-SG sweet both-PL-ERG eat-PERF) vs. _ardhā-ardhā lāḍū doghānnī khallā_. "Each of them ate half a sweet (i.e. they ate the whole thing together)"

Adverbial reduplication:

  • Lexicalised compounds: _haḷū_ "slowly" vs. _haḷū-haḷū_ "gradually", _parat_ "again" vs. parat-parat "repeatedly".

  • Intensification: _to jorāt oraḍlā_. "He shouted loudly" (he loudly shout-IMPF-3MSG) vs. _to jor-jorāt oraḍlā_. "He shouted (very) loudly".

Verbal reduplication:

  • Adverbialisation: _(malā) sāngūn-sāngūn kanṭāḷ ālā_. "(I) am tired of telling sb. sth. again and again" (me-DAT tell-CVB-PERF tell-CVB-PERF boredom.M come-3MSG).

  • Sequential/parallel actions: _bastā-bastā pāūs surū jhālā_. "While (we) were sitting, it started raining" (sit-IMPF-PTCP sit-IMPF-PTCP rain.M start happen-3MSG); _baslyā baslyā pāūs surū jhālā_. "As soon as (we) sat down, it started raining)" (sit-PERF-PTCP sit-PERF-PTCP rain.M start happen-3MSG). These can be expressed with converbs, but reduplication is more frequent in narrative contexts.

Pronouns: pluralisation; _kuṭhe?_ "where?"; _kuṭhe kuṭhe?_ "where? (multiple places)"

Echo words: _mula_ "children"; _mula bila_ "children etc.".

Any suggestions? Would a subtype of compound work for all of these?

Indo-Iranian dependencies question

All 4 comments

Perfect, I hadn't noticed that. I'll subtype compound, then - cheers!

Also see #238 and #307. Looks like we need a section on reduplication in the docs.

We need a lot in the docs. Working out more complete guidelines and docs should definitely be our first priority once the dust settles after the shared task and the workshop.

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