Chapter in:
Grammatical and Sociolinguistic Aspects of Ethiopian LanguagesEdited by Derib Ado, Almaz Wasse Gelagay and Janne Bondi Johannessen †
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 48] 2021
Reduplication in Oromo
Shimelis Mazengia | Addis Ababa University
The morphological processes of reduplication in Oromo involve
copying a root or a stem, entirely or partially. The latter requires replication of
a prosodic CVC template from the left side of the base. The process may require
adapting the onset of the adjacent syllable as a coda of the prosodic template. The
copied portion, reduplicant, of a root or a stem is prefixed to the latter. However,
if the base consists of a geminate or a cluster, the prefixing of the copied
reduplicant would be constrained to a CV by a dissimilation rule. In a total
reduplication, as in partial reduplication, the copied root or stem is placed to the
left of its base. The word classes amenable to total reduplication are nouns,
determiners, numerals, adverbs and adpositions, while those agreeable to partial
reduplication are adjectives and verbs. Functionally, reduplicated nouns assume a
predicative role and adpositions an adverbial role. The reduplicative forms of the
other word classes are limited to their respective canonical functions, essentially
with the sense of augmentation in terms of quantity, frequency or intensity.
Keywords: reduplication, partial, total, prosodic, copy
References
References
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Shimelis, Mazengia