Editing Reduplication (section)

====English====
English has several types of reduplication, ranging from informal expressive vocabulary (the first four forms below) to grammatically meaningful forms (the last two below). See also the [[Irreversible binomial#With alliteration|alliteration section of the irreversible binomial article]] for cases like ''flip-flop'' and ''dribs and drabs''.

* '''Rhyming reduplication''': Artsy-fartsy, [[boogie-woogie]], okey-dokey, easy-peasy, hanky-panky, [[hocus-pocus]], hoity-toity, hokey-pokey, [[Holy Moly|holy moly]], [[hurdy-gurdy]], itsy-bitsy, namby-pamby, raggle-taggle, ragtag, razzle-dazzle, super-duper, teenie-weenie, willy-nilly, wingding.
* '''Exact reduplications''': Ack ack, aye-aye, back-to-back, blah-blah, boo-boo, bye-bye, chin-chin, choo-choo, chow-chow, dik-dik, doo-doo, fifty-fifty, gogo, ha ha, half-and-half, honk-honk, housey-housey, juju, klop-klop, mama, [[muumuu]], night-night, no-no, papa, pee-pee, pip-pip, [[pom-pom]], poo-poo, pooh-pooh, [[Miniature golf|putt putt]], so-so, ta-ta, there-there, tut-tut, [[Tutu (clothing)|tutu]], [[Wah-wah pedal|wah-wah]], wee-wee, [[yo-yo]]. While in many forms of English, exact reduplications can also be used to emphasise the strength of a word ("He wants it ''now'' now"), in South African English, 'now-now' means 'relatively soon'.
** lexical reduplication: 'Each-each boy take one-one chair.' [[Indian English]]
* '''[[Ablaut reduplication]]s''': In [[ablaut]] reduplications, the first vowel is almost always a [[high vowel]] or [[front vowel]] (typically ɪ as in hit) and the reduplicated vowel is a [[low vowel]] or [[back vowel]] (typically æ as in ''cat'' or ɒ as in ''top''). Examples include: bric-a-brac, chit-chat, clip-clop, ding-dong, flimflam, [[Flip-flops|flip-flop]], [[hip-hop]], jibber-jabber, kitty-cat, knick-knack, mishmash, [[ping-pong]], pitter-patter, riffraff, sing-song, slipslop, splish-splash, tick-tock, ticky-tacky, tip-top, whiff-whaff, wibble-wobble, wishy-washy, zig-zag.  Three-part ablaut sequences are less numerous, but are attested, e.g. [[tic-tac-toe]], bing-bang-boom, bish-bash-bosh, splish-splash-splosh<ref>Donka Minkova, "Ablaut reduplication in English: the criss-crossing of prosody and verbal art", ''English Language and Linguistics'' '''6''':1:133–169 (May 2002), {{doi|10.1017/S1360674302001077}}</ref> and "[[Live, Laugh, Love]]". [[Spike Milligan]]'s poem "[[On the Ning Nang Nong]]" achieves comic effect by varying the ordering of vowels in such triples: ''There's a Nong Nang Ning/Where the trees go Ping!''.
* '''[[Shm-reduplication]]''' can be used with most any word; e.g. ''baby-shmaby'', ''cancer-shmancer'' and ''fancy-shmancy''. This process is a feature of [[American English]] from [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]], starting among the [[American Jews]] of [[New York City]], then the [[New York City English|New York dialect]] and then the whole country.

Of the above types, only shm-reduplication is [[Productivity (linguistics)|productive]], meaning that examples of the first three are fixed forms and new forms are not easily accepted.

* '''[[Comparative]] reduplication''': In the sentence "John's apple looked redder and redder," the reduplication of the [[comparative]] indicates that the comparative is becoming more true over time, meaning roughly "John's apple looked progressively redder as time went on."  In particular, this construction does {{em|not}} mean that John's apple is redder than some other apple, which would be a possible interpretation in the absence of reduplication, e.g. in "John's apple looked redder."  With reduplication, the comparison is of the object being compared to itself over time.  Comparative reduplication always combines the reduplicated comparative with "and".  This construction is common in speech and is used even in formal speech settings, but it is less common in formal written texts.  Although English has simple constructs with similar meanings, such as "John's apple looked ever redder," these simpler constructs are rarely used in comparison with the reduplicative form.  Comparative reduplication is fully [[Productivity (linguistics)|productive]] and clearly changes the meaning of any comparative to a temporal one, despite the absence of any time-related words in the construction.  For example, the temporal meaning of "The frug seemed wuggier and wuggier" is clear: despite not knowing what a frug is or what wugginess is, it is easy to grasp that the apparent wugginess of the frug was increasing over time, as indicated by the reduplication of the comparative "wuggier".{{citation needed|date=April 2022}}
* '''[[Contrastive focus reduplication]]''': Exact reduplication can be used with contrastive focus (generally where the first noun is [[Stress (linguistics)|stressed]]) to indicate a literal, as opposed to figurative, example of a noun, or perhaps a sort of [[Platonic idealism|Platonic ideal]] of the noun, as in "Is that carrot ''cheese''cake or carrot ''cake'' cake?".{{sfn|Ghomeshi|Jackendoff|Rosen|Russell|2004}} This is similar to the Finnish use mentioned above. Furthermore, it is used to contrast "real" or "pure" things against imitations or less pure forms. For example, at a coffee shop one may be asked, "Do you want soy milk?" and respond, "No, I want ''milk'' milk." This gives the idea that they want "real" milk.{{citation needed|date=April 2022}}
* Intensificatory reduplication: Examples like ''a big, big problem,'' ''a long, long way'', or ''very very difficult'' are instances of intensificatory reduplication. This type of reduplication is used to intensify the meaning of the original word.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Watt |first=W. C. |date=1968 |title=English Reduplication |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/007542426800200109 |journal=Journal of English Linguistics |language=en |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=96–122 |doi=10.1177/007542426800200109 |s2cid=220752157 |issn=0075-4242}}</ref> It's a way of expressing that something is not just big or long, but very big or very long. This type of reduplication is typically used only with a narrow range of words, and the meaning can often be inferred even if the specific combination is not a standard idiomatic expression. The more common items include [[Comparison (grammar)|gradable]] adjectives (e.g., ''big'', ''great'', ''deep'', ''bad'', ''old''), along with intensificatory adverbs (e.g., ''very'', ''really'', ''so'') and determiners (e.g., ''much''). This is only possible for pre-head [[Grammatical modifier|modifiers]], and not with other [[Grammatical relation|syntactic functions]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Huddleston |first1=Rodney |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/9781316423530/type/book |title=The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language |last2=Pullum |first2=Geoffrey K. |date=2002-04-15 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-43146-0 |edition=1 |pages=561 |doi=10.1017/9781316423530}}</ref> For example, ''a long long way'' is fine, but ''*the way is long long'' is ungrammatical, and ''I really really want it'' but not ''*I want it really really''.

The [[double is]]—such as "What I want is, is to go home"—is in some cases a type of reduplication, which may be regarded as non-standard or incorrect.

More can be learned about English reduplication in {{harvtxt|Thun|1963}}, {{harvtxt|Cooper|Ross|1975}}, and {{harvtxt|Nevins|Vaux|2003}}.