Reduplication in

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

is used to intensify meaning in different ways. Reduplication is also observable in borrowed words, such as "" (;

ping-pong Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

) and "" (;

zig-zag A zigzag is a pattern made up of small corners at variable angles, though constant within the zigzag, tracing a path between two parallel lines; it can be described as both jagged and fairly regular. In geometry, this pattern is described as a ...

), but since the words were borrowed as is from other languages, they are not examples of reduplication as it works in the

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...

of Russian.

Syllabic/root/stem reduplication

There is virtually no productive syllabic or

root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...

stem Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushr ...

reduplication in the modern Russian language., in Proc. Intl. Congress ''Russian Language: Historical Fates and Modern Times'' (), Moscow, MSU, March 13–16, 2001, section "Word Formation of the Modern Russian Language" An ancient

lexical stratum In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through language contact, contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a s ...

of the Russian language provides examples such as "" (; mommy), "" (;

daddy A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. An adoptive fath ...

), "" (; granny)—a phenomenon common to many languages. It is argued that these words originated in the

reduplicated In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwar ...

babbling of

infant An infant or baby is the very young offspring of human beings. ''Infant'' (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'unable to speak' or 'speechless') is a formal or specialised synonym for the common term ''baby''. The terms may also be used t ...

Word reduplication

Word reduplications are mostly the feature of the

colloquial language Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the style (sociolinguistics), linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom norm ...

and in most cases do not constitute separate dictionary entries. Word reduplication may occur in the following forms: *a

hyphenated The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (figure ...

word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...

, both of standard vocabulary or standard ''

ad hoc Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning literally 'to this'. In English, it typically signifies a solution for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a generalized solution adaptable to collateral instances. (Compare with '' a priori''.) C ...

word formation In linguistics, word formation is an ambiguous term that can refer to either: * the processes through which words can change (i.e. morphology), or * the creation of new lexemes in a particular language Morphological A common method of word for ...

**exact reduplication: ***"" (; "very few", lit. "few-few")—a vocabulary word ***"" (; "very white (snow)", lit. "white-white (snow)")—''ad hoc'' formation, for adjectives **inflected reduplication: ***"" (; "very long time ago", lit. "pastly-past") ***"" (; "very white", lit. "whitely-white") **Reduplication of adjectives using the enhancement preposition "" () ***"" (; "very big", lit. "big-very-big" ***"" (; "very white", lit. "white-very-white") *A repetition of a word in dialogues as a device used either to request or to promise a higher degree of cooperation:Israeli, A. (1997). "Syntactic reduplication in Russian: A cooperative principle device in dialogues".

Journal of Pragmatics The ''Journal of Pragmatics'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the linguistic subfield of pragmatics. It was established in 1977 by Jacob L. Mey (at that time Odense University) and Hartmut Haberland (Roskilde University). The ...

, 27(5), 587-609 **"" or "", ()—a general-purpose urge to do something, literally "give it, give it!", meaning "Come on!" or "Let's do it!" **"" (; "Run, run!")—a specific urge to run: to run fast or to run right away. **"" ()—an enhanced agreement: "Of course, of course!" **"" ( "Yes, yes")—an utterance used in dialogs to indicate either constant attention ("yes, yes, I am listening") or agreement ("yes, yes, of course") *

Shm-reduplication Shm-reduplication is a form of reduplication originating in Yiddish in which the original word or its first syllable (the base) is repeated with the copy (the reduplicant) beginning with shm- (sometimes schm-), pronounced . The construction is ge ...

and m-reduplication, to express irony, borrowed from Yiddish and

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former ...

n cultures respectively, sometimes used as a mockery of the corresponding languages or peoples; see Russian jokes about Georgians for examples of this phenomenon *As an expression of a

frequentative In grammar, a frequentative form ( abbreviated or ) of a word is one that indicates repeated action but is not to be confused with iterative aspect. The frequentative form can be considered a separate but not completely independent word called ...

or of a prolonged action **"" (; "They are pulling and pulling, but cannot pull it

he turnip He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

out")—a phrase from the classical fairy tale ''Repka'' ("", "The

Turnip The turnip or white turnip (''Brassica rapa'' subsp. ''rapa'') is a root vegetable commonly grown in temperate climates worldwide for its white, fleshy taproot. The word ''turnip'' is a compound (linguistics), compound of ''turn'' as in turned/r ...

") **"" (; " eis looking and looking") **"" (; " ewent and went") *

Onomatopoeic Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', '' ...

reduplication **"" (; the sound of the droplets of water) **"" () or "" (); the sound of a clock ticking **"" (); bowwow, barking of a dog *

Frequentative In grammar, a frequentative form ( abbreviated or ) of a word is one that indicates repeated action but is not to be confused with iterative aspect. The frequentative form can be considered a separate but not completely independent word called ...

, often combined with ideophonic/onomatopoeic derivation **"" (), from "", "to slash with a knife" **"" (), from "" ("to

jump Jumping is a form of locomotion or movement in which an organism or non-living (e.g., robotic) mechanical system propels itself through the air along a ballistic trajectory. Jump or Jumping also may refer to: Places * Jump, Kentucky or Jump S ...

", "to hop"). A similar derivation in English would be " When the red red robin/Comes bob bob bobbing along").

Affixal reduplication

A peculiarity of Russian language is synonymic

affix In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ...

al reduplication, whereby a root may acquire two productive suffixes or prefixes, different, but of the same

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and compu ...

, with the corresponding intensification of the meaning: *Affectional

diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A ( abbreviated ) is a word-form ...

s: **"" ()→"" ()→"" ( "

girlfriend A girlfriend is a female friend, acquaintance or partner, usually a female companion with whom one is platonically, romantically, or sexually involved. In a romantic context, this normally signifies a committed relationship where the ...

"). Here, ""→"" is an example of

consonant mutation Consonant mutation is change in a consonant in a word according to its morphological or syntactic environment. Mutation occurs in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all ...

, and "" and "" are two diminutive-generating suffixes. This kind of word formation is especially productive for given names: "" (, "

Catherine Katherine, also spelled Catherine, and other variations are feminine names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria. In the early Christ ...

")→"" (,

hypocoristic A hypocorism ( or ; from Ancient Greek: (), from (), 'to call by pet names', sometimes also ''hypocoristic'') or pet name is a name used to show affection for a person. It may be a diminutive form of a person's name, such as '' Izzy'' for ...

)→"" ( " Katyusha")→"" ()→"" (, sounds intentionally ridiculous) *Another example: **"" (, "to forget")→"" (, "to forget for a while")→"" ()

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reduplication In The Russian Language Russian language Reduplication

Syllabic/root/stem reduplication

Word reduplication

Affixal reduplication

See also

References