Reduplication in South America: An Introduction

Reduplication is a phenomenon that occurs in majority of world's languages, which explains why Pott's (1862) seminal monograph on reduplication bears title Doubling (reduplication, gemination) as one of most important building means of language. The study of specific topics across South American languages, such as reduplication, may also help answer areal linguistic questions and, consequently, reinforce value of linguistic heritage of continent. This chapter is a revision of analysis of Trinitario reduplication patterns originally appearing in Gill (1957). This current analysis incorporates new data and reveals the greater complexity in morphology-prosody interface. It examines verbal reduplication at semantic, morphological and phonological levels, providing new analyses for two reduplication patterns: one that involves consonant doubling and other deletion of root-final vowel. Keywords: linguistic sample; morphological level; phonological level; semantic level; South America languages; Trinitario reduplication patterns