LINGUIST List 5.300

Wed 16 Mar 1994

Sum: Contrastive repetition

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1. Jan Krister Lindstrom, Summary on contrastive repetition

I sent a query about a special kind of repetition used in Swedish
via the List in the beginning of March. To my delight, I received
about 40 replies from linguists from different fields and countries.
I thank all the contributors most heartily and also you people who
keep the List running; it's a real resource that should be appreciated!

My original query went on about if repetition may be used in other languages
in a corresponding *contrastive* way as in the Swedish example:
 -- Du har en ny blus.
 -- Ny och ny, jag koepte den i vaaras.

Lit. -- You've got a new blouse.
 -- New and new, I bought it last spring.

I think the function of the repetition may be described as being a way of
emphasizing a contrast between an absolute and relative content of the item
that is being picked up (most typically then in a dialogue, but I have seen
it also in a monologous written text). Typically, the person who repeats
reacts a bit negatively, or at least embarrassed, to the previous speaker's
choice of words. The repetition might also be paraphrased like:
 -- 'New perhaps for you (because you have not seen my blouse
 before) but not new for me (since I bought it long ago).
For the first speaker then the blouse is absolutely new, for the
carrier of the blouse the newness is very relative to what she knows
about the world. I can give a further example:

 -- Hur kunde du laemna en saa fin kvinna som Maria?
 -- Laemna och laemna, inte vet jag riktigt om jag blev utslaengd
 eller gick sjaelv.
Lit. -- How could you leave so fine a woman as Mary?
 -- Leave and leave, I'm not really sure if I was thrown out
 or if I left myself.
I.e. 'It was leaving perhaps for you but I'm not sure if you can call
it leaving...'

It seems that in practise any item -- noun, verb, adverb, pronoun -- may
be picked up, reiterated and put in the coordinated frame *X och X* as an
initial clause-fragment where the content of the item is being weighed.

Now, to the replies to whether this construction exists in other languages
than Swedish (or Finnish that seems to be influenced by Swedish at this
point, due to a geo- and ethnographical contact):

It is perhaps not surprising that the construction seems possible in the
Scandinavian near relative languages Danish and Norwegian, but it is good
to get a confirmation. In Danish & Norwegian one may repeat:
 -- Ny og ny, jeg koepte den sidste foraar. (Dan)
 -- Ny og ny, jeg kjoepte den i vaar. (Nor)

It is also said "definetely" to exist in German, but I am short of examples.

Polish also seems to have a near equivalent, although the expression is not
construed with a coordinator but with the comparison particle *jak* ('as/like')
 -- Nowa jak nowa, kupilem ja w zeszlym roku.
 'new as/like new, I-bought her in last year'

Some other languages from which I was provided examples seem to operate
with repetition in a somewhat similar manner as the above, but the form
or the function of the expressions deviate a little from the Swedish type.

Many contributors pointed out that Yiddish and Yiddish-influenced English
uses reduplication in what seem to be rather similar contexts as my
original example. The peculiarity of this pattern is that the repeat-item
gets the phonic 'schm'-dress:
 -- New and schmew! I've had it for years.

A couple of persons mentioned Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese and possibly other
Chinese dialects as a point of interest. In this case we seem to have a
concessive construction which is in function a little different from the
Swedish. In Swedish you disagree with the other one, or with a given content,
in Chinese you seem to be compromising -- a case of Oriental politeness???)
 -- Dongxi hao shi hao, jiushi jiaqian tai gui.
 'Thing good is good, it's-just-that price too expensive.'
or 'That thing is pretty good all right...'
But I have to get more familiar with the Chinese usage to be able to track
the possible diffrence more precisely.

Japanese seems to function in a corresponding way to the Mandarin:
 Omoshiroi koto wa omoshiroi n desu ga...
 'It's that it is *interesting*, but...

In Galician Portuguese, reiteration seems fairly similar to the Swedish
iterative coordination:
 -- Nova nova nao e'.
 'New new, it is not'

In Spanish and French, repetition also has contrastive functions but the
structures seem to be more elaborated:
 -- Por tener dinero, tiene dinero. (Spa)
 'For tohave money, has money'
 -- Pour etre neuve, elle est neuve... (Fre)
 'For tobe new, it is new...

Most contributors also claim that English demands a bit more elaboration
in contrastive function, e.g.
 -- There's new and new...
Dutch is said to operate in a similar manner to English:
 -- Er zijn leraren en leraren
 'there are teachers and teachers'

Some persons noted that a simple repetition of an item with a stress on
the first one is in contrastive use in (American) spoken English
 -- She's not really OLD old
meaning 'she's not almost dead even though an elderly person' or something.
This use I regard rather different from the Swedish type, at least what
comes to the form and context of the expression.

The emphatic iteration *presto presto* ('quickly quickly i.e. 'very quickly')
typical in Italian and Sard is another kind of a phenomenon, since we do not
have any contrast here. Repetition serves an emphatic, additive function in
these kinds of instances.

The summary seems to illustrate the potencies of repetition in contrastive
functions. In this general perspective, the phenomenon may bear some
universality. As regards the form and more specific pragmatic functions
of the expressions, these are, naturally, more language dependent. The
most equivalent languages to the Swedish construction type are the
Scandinavian sister-languages Danish and Norwegian and presumably German.
Finnish operates in the same way:
 -- Uusi ja uusi, ostin sen jo kauan sitten.
 'new and new, I bought it already long ago'
Polish, I think, has a close formal and functional similarity. This may
be exciting because all these languages are spoken around the Baltic sea
that could be of some area-linguistic interest. Perhaps. About this
'linguistic area' there is a paper by Raukko & Ostman (1994).

I consider all the other examples cited here relevant and absolutely
essential to be commented when analysing the contrastive functions of
repetition in Swedish in particular or in language in general.

Some of you were interested in the intonation in the Swedish/Finnish
contrastive repetition. I have not actually measured it in any way, but
by intuition I would say that the intonation works identically in
Swedish and Finnish: there is a slight stress on the second item.
But I think there is also a very peculiar melody when people are uttering
something like *ny och ny*. It might be characterized as a way of
lengthening the vowels and the tone being somewhat discontented, not
positively emphatic anyway. The expression may well be accompanied with
a slight shake of the head or the rocking of the hand the palm down, as
if weighing between two things.

I will discuss these things in a chapter in my doctoral thesis on
iterative coordination in Swedish in general and I am very likely going
to write a shorter paper on the contrastive type of repetition in the near
future.

If you have further comments on the topic, feel free to e-mail me.

All the best, Jan Lindstrom
 Dept. of Scandinavian languages
 PB 4
 00014 University of Helsinki
 Finland
 <jlindstrwaltari.helsinki.fi>

My thanks go to the following persons:
Hanne Erdman Thomsen (on Danish)
Oesten Dahl (on Yiddish)
Brian White (on English)
Janne Johannessen (on Norwegian)
Larry Horn (on reduplication in English)
John Goldsmith (on Spanish and French)
Norbert Strade (on Danish)
Gregory Ward (on contact information)
Aaron Broadwell (on Yiddish)
Jussi Karlgren (on Yiddish and Chinese)
Ellen F. Prince (on Yiddish)
Meg Withgott (on reduplication in English, intonation)
Piotr Banski (on Polish)
Grace Fielder (on reduplication in English)
David N. Wigtil (on English)
Hartmut Haberland (on German, Danish, Japanese)
Karen Steffen Chung (on Mandarin, Taiwanese)
Eric Bakovic (on reduplication in English)
Celso Alvarez-Caccamo (on Portuguese)
Kurt Queller (on Mandarin)
PC Jorgensen (on Norwegian)
J.A. Rea (on Italian and Sard)
Norio Ota (on Japanese)
Jane Edwards (on English & intonation)
Frits Stuurman (on Dutch)
Olaf Husby (on Norwegian)
John Cowan (on Yiddish)
Linda Coleman (on English)
Eleanor Olds Batchelder (on Yiddish)
Connor Ferris (on English)
Raphael Salkie (on Yiddish)
Mary Ellen Ryder (on reduplication in English)
Kersti Borjars (on English, Dutch)