LINGUIST List 2.881

Sat 28 Dec 1991

Disc: Phonology: Opacity and Reduplication

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. , Opaque orderings
2. Ellen Prince, Re: 2.859 Reduplication
3. Susan Ervin-Tripp, Re: 2.859 Reduplication

One place where one can find occasional counterfeeding orders is
in the rules governing English casual speech. In my English, for
example, geminate /tt/ can be simplified to single (unaspirated)
{t}, which ought to make it available for flapping, but flapping
in those cases sound `too sloppy'. Examples as follows:
`syntactic' can become, by assimilation {sIntattIk}, which can
be pronounced {sIntatIk}, but {sIntaDIk} is overly sloppy-sounding.
Similarly, `rent-to-own' is OK as {rEntuoun} but {rEnDuoun} is
terrible. My suspicion is that there are lots of cases where
counterfeeding orders are more `careful' or precise, and reordering
is either possible or not depending on individual or social factors.
I think David Stampe originally noticed this kind of data.
 Geoff Nathan <ga3662siucvmb.bitnet>
 Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

Message 2: Re: 2.859 Reduplication

>Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1991 09:15 EST
>From: MORGANLOYOLA.EDU
>Subject: Re: 2.846 Queries: Ling. Dictionary, Texas Ling. Forum, Reduplication
>
>
>Re reduplication: I'm not quite sure how far you wish to carry
>the idea, but a nickname for "Luigi" in Italian is "Gigi", which
>would be AB ==> BB.
>
>L Morgan
it's bigger than 'luigi', now that i think of it. in egyptian french (which
often dips into italian in naming practices), you get the following
diminutives (some of them also occur in continental french, i believe):
andre'e: de'di [masc. andre' is douri; in continental french it's de'de'.]
isaac: zizi
joseph: sousou, zouzou
victor: toto
salomone': none'
raphaele: lello
jacqueline: kiki
sophie: fifi
...
and then there's good ol' robert: bob(by).

Message 3: Re: 2.859 Reduplication

The reduplication in nicknames (esp. family nicknames)
could be derived from very young children's speech,
in which there is often word-structure simplification
such as converting an adult form with more complex structure into
reduplicated CVCV. The selected CV tends to be more stressed, or if
there is no stress, more often either final, or initial, than medial.
I am not sure of the generality of this phenomenon in a variety of
languages.
Susan Ervin-Tripp
ervin-trcogsci.berkeley.edu