Cover not available
Part of
Word Classes: Nature, typology and representations
Edited by Raffaele Simone and Francesca Masini
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 332] 2014
► pp. 245–262

Word-class features and reduplicative meaning

The case of Modern Greek

Total reduplication (TR) of the type X X (as in Modern Greek vima “step” > vima vima “step by step”) has been discussed as a possible language universal (Stolz 2003/4, 2006). The meanings arising from reduplication are often considered a direct function of the word classes that the process applies to (Kiyomi 1995; Dixon & Aikhenvald 2004; Singh 2005). This paper explores the correlation of word classes with reduplicative meaning in a typological perspective and with special reference to TR in Modern Greek (MG). Typological evidence shows that instead of assumed general characteristics of word classes, particular lexical and morphosyntactic features of sub-classes within major classes seem to be responsible for the rise of certain meanings in reduplication. The features discussed here concern countability, plural marking and gradability of the lexical content of the MG bases for TR.
Published online: 24 September 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.332.13kal
References (39)
Bach, Emmon. 1986. “The Algebra of Events”. Linguistics and Philosophy 9.5–16.Google Scholar
Baker, Mark. 2003. Lexical Categories: Verbs, nouns and adjectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Botha, Rudolph P. 1988. Form and Meaning in Word Formation: A study of Afrikaans reduplication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. 1985. Morphology: A Study of the Relation between Meaning and Form. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2003. “Mechanisms of Grammaticalization. The role of frequency”. The Handbook of Historical Linguistics ed. by Brian D. Joseph & Richard D. Janda, 602–623. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Croft, William. 1991. Syntactic Categories and Grammatical Relations. The cognitive organization of information. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dik, Simon C. 1997. The Theory of Functional Grammar (ed. by Kees Hengeveld). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Dixon, R.M.W. & Alexandra, Y. Aikhenvald, eds. 2004. Adjective Classes: A cross-linguistic typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dressler, Wolfgang U. & Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi. 1994. Morphopragmatics: Diminutives and intensifiers in Italian, German and other languages. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Enfield, Nicholas J. 2004. “Adjectives in Lao”. Dixon & Aikhenvald, eds. 2004, 323–348.Google Scholar
Filip, Hana. 1999. Aspect, Eventuality Types and Noun Phrase Semantics. Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics. New York: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J. & Paul Kay. 1994. Construction Grammar Textbook. Revised version. Department of Linguistics, The University of California at Berkeley.Google Scholar
Gil, David. 1995. “Distributive Numerals”. The World Atlas of Language Structure ed. by Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil & Bernard Comrie. Max Planck Digital Library: [URL]. Accessed on 4/4/2011.Google Scholar
Ghomeshi, Jila, Ray Jackendoff, Nicole Rosen & Kevin Russell. 2004. “Contrastive Focus Reduplication in English (The salad-salad paper)”. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 22.307–357. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hajek, John. 2004. Adjective classes: What can we conclude? In Dixon & Aikhenvald (eds.), 348–361.Google Scholar
Hurch, Bernhard, ed. 2005. Studies on Reduplication (=Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 28). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hyslop, Catriona. 2004. “Adjectives in North-East Ambae”. Dixon & Aikhenvald, eds. 2004, 263–282.
Jackendoff, Ray. 2008. “ Construction After Construction and Its Theoretical Challenges”. Language 84:1.8–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kallergi, Haritini. Forthcoming 2015. Reduplication at the Word Level: The Greek facts in typological perspective. (Studia Typologica 17). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Kiyomi, Setsuko. 1995. “A New Approach to Reduplication: A semantic study of noun and verb reduplication in the Malayo-Polynesian languages”. Linguistics 33.1145–1167. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kouwenberg, Silvia. 1993. A Grammar of Berbice Dutch Creole. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Launey, Michel. 1981. Introduction à la langue et à la littérature aztèques. Tome 1: Grammaire. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Lindström, Jan. 1995. “Sum: Reduplication”. Post on the LinguistList 6.52, 16 January 1995.Google Scholar
Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mattes, Veronika. 2006. “One form-opposite meanings? Diminutive and augmentative interpretation of full reduplication in Bikol”. Paper presented at Tenth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Philippines, 17–20 January 2006). Available online at [URL]
Mirambel, André. 1978. Η νέα ελληνική γλώσσα. Περιγραφή και ανάλυση. 2η έκδ. Φωτοτυπική [The Modern Greek Language: Description and analysis. 2nd copied edition]. Tessaloniki: Institute of Modern Greek Studies.Google Scholar
Moravcsik, Edith. 1978. “Reduplicative Constructions”. Universals of Human Language ed. by Joseph H. Greenberg, vol. III, 297–334. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Nakas, Thanasis. 1996. “Λεξική και Φραστική Επανάληψη/Επαναδίπλωση”, Μέρος A. [Lexical and Phrasal Repetition / Reduplication, Part A]. Λεξικογραφικόν Δελτίον 20.221–329.Google Scholar
Pelletier, Francis Jeffry. 1975. “Non-singular reference: Some preliminaries”. Philosophia 5.451–465. Reprinted in Pelletier (1979), 1–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1979. Mass terms: Some philosophical problems. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Regier, Terry. 1998. “Reduplication and the Arbitrariness of the Sign”. Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Conference on Cognitive Science Society, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1–4 August 1998 ed. by Morton Ann Gernbacher & Sharon J. Derry, 887–892.Google Scholar
Rubino, Carl. 2005. “Reduplication: Form, function and distribution”. Hurch, ed. 2005, 11–30.
Singh, Rajendra. 2005. “Reduplication in Modern Hindi and the Theory of Reduplication”. Hurch, ed. 2005, 263–282.
Stolz, Thomas. 2003/04. “A New Mediterraneanism: Word iteration in an areal perspective. A pilot-study”. Mediterranean Language Review 15.1–47.Google Scholar
. 2006. “(Wort-)Iteration: (k)eine universelle Konstruktion”. Konstruktionsgrammatik. Von der Anwendung zur Theorie ed. by Kerstin Fischer & Anatol Stefanowitsch, 105–132. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
. 2007. “Re: duplication. Iconic vs. counter-iconic principles (and their areal correlates)”. Europe and the Mediterranean as Linguistic Areas. Convergencies from a historical and typological perspective ed. by Paolo Ramat & Elisa Roma, 317–350. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009. “Total Reduplication: Syndetic vs. asyndetic patterns in Europe”. Grazer Linguistische Studien 17.99–113.Google Scholar
Stolz, Thomas, Cornelia Stroh & Aina Urdze. 2011. Total Reduplication: The areal linguistics of a potential universal. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trask, Robert Lawrence. 2000. The dictionary of historical and comparative linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar