Bontok Reduplication and Prosodic Templates

This paper analyzes reduplication patterns in Bontok. It gives a comprehensive synchronic description of verb and noun reduplication, but focuses on two aspects: (1) the function of reduplication patterns in the Bontok grammatical system, and (2) the phonological processes that accompany reduplication. The claim is that in Bontok heavy syllable reduplication interacts with two phonological processes: gemination and metathesis. It is suggested that these processes occur because there is a constraint preventing glottal stops from being introduced into syllable codas. It is also argued that in reduplication, not just the segmental structure is copied, but the prosodic template as well. It is shown that copying the prosodic template is necessary, because the prosodic template contains needed information about syllable onsets and codas.