6. Kinds of morphemes and morphological processes

6.4. Reduplication and non-concatenative morphology

Reduplication

Reduplication is a special morphological process that involves full or partial copying of the stem. Some examples of full reduplication in Javanese are shown in (4). In all of these examples, reduplication indicates plurality.

(4) bare form bare form gloss reduplicated form reduplicated form gloss
a. baita ship baita~baita various ships
b. səsupe ring səsupe~səsupe various rings
c. omaha house omaha~omaha various houses

(Uhlenbeck 1978: 90, as cited by Booij 2005: 35)

Javanese also has partial reduplication. Whereas the reduplicated forms in (4) repeat the entire stem, the reduplicated forms in (5) only reduplicate the initial consonant. Note that the vowel that has been added in the reduplicated forms is not copied from the stem; in all cases, it is a /ə/, regardless of the vowels of the stem. In all of the examples in (5), reduplication indicates a change from a noun into a verb.

(5) bare form bare form gloss reduplicated form reduplicated form gloss
a. gəni fire g~ə-gəni to warm oneself by the fire
b. jawah rain j~ə-jawah to play in the rain
c. tamu guest t~ə-tamu to visit

(Uhlenbeck 1978: 90, as cited by Booij 2005: 35)

Javanese uses many different reduplicative patterns with a variety of meanings. For a thorough description of many of the ways reduplication is used in Javanese, see Miyake (2011).

According to the Leipzig glossing rules, reduplication should be marked with a tilde (~) connecting the reduplicant to the stem.

Non-concatenative morphology

Affixes, for the most part, join the root on its edges, resulting in a linear string of morphemes, but not all morphological processes result in a linear string of morphemes. Morphological processes that produce affixes in a linear string are called concatenative, from the Latin word catena ‘chain’, while morphological processes that do not result in a linear string are called non-concatenative. We have already seen some examples of non-concatenative morphology; suprafixes, which modify the prosody of a word, are one type of non-concatenative morphology.

Root-and-pattern morphology

A well-known example of non-concatenative morphology is root-and-pattern morphology, which is common in the Semitic language family. In Semitic languages, many roots consist only of three consonants. These are known as triconsonantal roots. Different sets of vowels are interwoven between the consonants in specific patterns, creating different but related word forms. These vowel patterns are sometimes called transfixes, because they are inserted across the root. An example from Hebrew is shown below in (1).

(1)
Transfix pattern Pattern meaning Hebrew verb Gloss
a. CaCaC intransitive verb gadal He grew.
b. CiCeC to cause X gidel He raised.
c. CuCaC to be caused to be X gudal He was raised.
d. hiCCiC to make X higdil He enlarged.
e. huCCaC to be made to be X hugdal He was enlarged.

(adapted from Ussishkin 2000: 659)

Example (1) shows several Hebrew words formed from the triconsonantal root gdl. In the first column, we see several different transfixes that can be applied to the root. Each transfix pattern includes three Cs which represent the placement of the root consonants. The transfix pattern also indicates which vowels are interwoven into the word and where, as well as if there are any additional consonants, such as the initial /h/ in examples (d) and (e).

Triconsonantal roots are bound roots, because they cannot appear on their own, without the vowels of a transfix.

Ablaut

Ablaut, also called internal change, is when a morphological process is marked by changing the vowel of the stem. Ablaut is used in many Germanic languages, including English. Ablaut is similar to root-and-pattern morphology, except it only affects one vowel.
Some examples of ablaut in the formation of the English plural are shown in (2). As you can see, there are many different vowels that may be affected by ablaut in English. For example, /oʊ/ changes to /aɪ/ in the plural of mouse in (2a), and /u/ changes to /i/ in the plural of goose in (2b) or tooth in (2c), and so forth.
(2) singular plural
a. mouse mice
b. goose geese
c. tooth teeth
d. woman women
Ablaut also shows up in English verbs. As shown in (3), there are two forms in English that may have ablaut compared to the bare form: the past tense and the past participle. The past participle is used in the English perfect (have sung, have come, etc.) or the passive (was sung, was found). Some verbs, like sing in (3a), have a different vowel for each of the three forms. Others use the same vowel for the bare form and the past participle but a different vowel for the past tense, such as come in (3b). Others have the same vowel for the past tense and past participle but a different vowel for the bare form, such as find in (3c) or get in (3d). Finally, drive in (3e) has a different vowel in all three formsthe bare form and past participle may be spelled the same, but they’re pronounced with different vowelsbut the past participle additionally has the regular past participle suffix.
(3) bare form past tense past participle
a. sing sang sung
b. come came come
c. find found found
d. get got got
e. drive /dɹɑiv/ drove /dɹoʊv/ drive-n /dɹɪvən/

Key takeaways

  • Reduplication is a morphological process whereby the stem is copied. The entire stem can be copied, which is called full reduplication, or just part of the stem, which is called partial reduplication.
  • Non-concatenative morphology are morphological processes that do not result in a linear string. Suprafixes, root-and-pattern morphology, and ablaut are all examples of non-concatenative morphology.
  • Root-and-pattern morphology is common in Semitic languages and consists of triconsonantal roots that are combined with a transfix. Transfixes indicate which vowels should be used and the arrangement of the consonants.
  • Ablaut is when a morphological category is marked by a vowel change.

Check yourself!


Consult the following data in answering the check yourself questions:

(4) Javanese
a. abang ‘red’
b. abang-abang ‘some what red, reddish’
c. biru ‘blue’
d. biru-biruan ‘bluish’

(Miyake 2011: 50)

(5) Morrocan Arabic
a. ktəb ‘write’
b. ktab ‘book’
c. ktuba ‘books’
d. katib ‘writer’

(Noamane 2018)

(6) a. sing-song
b. ding-dong
c. chat-chat
d. dilly-dally

References and further resources

For a general audience

🎉 McLendon, Lisa. November 9 2020. Why ablaut reduplication is top-top. ACES: The society for editing. https://aceseditors.org/news/2020/why-ablaut-reduplication-is-tip-top

For students

Booij, Geert. 2005. The grammar of words: An introduction to linguistic morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Academic sources

🔍 Miyake, Yoshimi. 2011. Reduplication in Javanese. Asian and African Languages and Linguistics 6: 45-59.

Noamane, Ayoub. 2018. Morphological causatives in Moroccan Arabic: Word-based or root-based? Asinag 13: 217-240.

Uhlenbeck, E. M. 1978. Studies in Javanese Morphology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

Ussishkin, Adam. 2000. Root-and-pattern morphology without roots or patterns. Proceedings of the North East Linguistics Society 30(2).

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