A-Templatic Reduplication
Diamandis Gafos · Linguistic Inquiry · 1998
In this squib I discuss an unusual type of reduplication in which the reduplicant varies not only in terms of its phonemic composition but also in terms of its prosodic shape. The variability in the shape of the reduplicant results from a grammar that does not impose any constraint particular to the shape of the reduplicant per se. Further, I demonstrate that even in cases where the reduplicant is shape invariant, this shape may also arise from a grammar that does not impose a constraint on the form of the reduplicant. In both cases all relevant aspects of the reduplicant’s realization arise from constraints that apply to the language in general. 1 Templatic Reduplication In the theory of word formation, the program of Prosodic Morphology (McCarthy and Prince 1986) has established that grammatical categories, usually in the domain of root-and-pattern and reduplicative morphology, are often expressed by invariant prosodic shapes or templates.