REDUPLICATION IN DHUNDHARI AND ADI

Jawaharlal Nehru University

Sonam Meena
sonammeena@gmail.com
Research Scholar
Phone number : 7982408665

ABSTRACT

This paper tries to investigate a typological study of reduplication and its structure and
patterns of two languages belonging to entirely different language families viz-a-viz
Dhundhari which is an indo Aryan language and Adi, a Tibeto-Burman language.
Reduplication is a common phenomenon and an important morphological process in the
grammar of both the languages where a lexical item is obtained from the existing base word
and showing the syntactic, semantic, pragmatic functions. This paper exemplifies types of
reduplication processes with the help of examples. Further, we will also look at the aspect of
Expressive morphology presented in both Dhundhari and Adi, thus showing a correlation
between the two far off languages.
Table of Contents

REDUPLICATION IN DHUNDHARI AND ADI ..................................................................

ABSTRACT ...........................................................................................................................
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................
METHODOLOGY AND DATA .............................................................................................
REDUPLICATION .................................................................................................................
TYPES OF REDUPLICATION ..............................................................................................
LEXICAL REDUPLICATION ...............................................................................................
ECHO FORMATION..................................................................................................................

COMPOUND...............................................................................................................................

WORD REDUPLICATION.........................................................................................................

EXPRESSIVES IN ADI...............................................................................................................

DISCONTINUOUS REDUPLICATION....................................................................................

CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................

APPENDIX I Map of Rajasthan showing Dhundhari speaking areas........................................

APPENDIX II Map of Arunachal Pradesh showing Adi speaking areas.....................................

APPENDIX III Language questionnaire......................................................................................

APPENDIX IV Informants' detail 1............................................................................................

APPENDIX V Informants' detail 2.............................................................................................

ABBREVIATIONS

aux. auxiliary verb

fig. figure
fsg. feminine singular
msg. masculine singular
pst. past tense
perf. perfective
INTRODUCTION

Dhundhari is the second major language of Rajasthan which is the biggest state of India with
its capital located in Jaipur. Dhundhari is the second largest speaking group of Rajasthani
better known as Jaipuri with around nine million speakers. It covers the districts of Jaipur,
Dausa, Tonk, Sawai Madhopur and Karauli. It is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in
Dhundhar region of northeastern Rajasthan State and is also called as Dhundhadi. It does
exhibit certain morphological features which are found common in Adi language despite of it
being belonging to a different language family. So, reduplication is a typological feature
which has its root everywhere and this feature is considered very productive as it forms new
lexical items after reduplication. If we analyse the languages of Tibeto-Burman and Austro-
Asiatic family, it is imperative to look for such structures, as these families employ this
phenomenon as one of the most productive processs of deriving new lexical items. Adi is a
language spoken by the Adis, one of the largest hill tribes of Arunachal Pradesh. Though they
were formerly known as abors, their tribe name as per the census records is Adi. The Adis are
sub –divided into different sub- tribes. Among them are Padam, Minyong, Pangi, Shimong,
Ashing, Pasi, Karko, Bokar, Bori, Ramo, Pailibo, Milan, Tngnam and Tagin. The Padam and
Minyong are the largest groups. The total population of the Adis according to the 1911 census
is 1.2 lakhs and they constitute the largest tribal group in Arunachal Pradesh. The Adis spread
over in the East, West and upper Siang Districts of Arunachal Pradesh. The Adi-
inhabited area is about 21.229 sq.kms, excluding the areas in the Dibang and Subansiri
valley.

METHODOLOGY AND DATA

The linguistic field work methodology was adopted for this research study. Linguistic data of
Adi Language has been collected with the help of two informants , whereas Dhundhari Data
has been collected from three informants. Interview method was used in order to collect the
data with the help of questionnaires

REDUPLICATION

The term “Reduplication” refers to either the morphological process (Abbi, 1992, Singh,
1999 & Sharon Inkelas) or the phonological process (Wilbur, 1973), in which the root or
stem of a word, or a part of the lexical item is repeated with exact shape or a slight change,
carrying a quite semantic modification. Reduplication can be either partial or complete.

Pei (1966: 230) refers to reduplication as a morphological process whereby there is a

repetition of a radical element or part of it, occurring usually at the beginning of a word,
occasionally within the word. Marantz (1982:437) defines reduplication as “a morphological
process relating a base form of a morpheme or stem to a derived form that may be analyzed
as being constructed from the base form via the affixation of phonemic material which is
necessarily identical in whole or in part to the base form”. According to Spencer (1991:13)
involves adding material whose identity is partially or wholly determined by the base.
According to O, Grady and Guzman (1996:143), reduplication is a “common morphological
process in certain languages which duplicates all or part of the base to which it applies to
mark a grammatical or semantic contrast.” Wilbur (1973:5) emphasizes the morphological
nature of reduplication, although it superficially resembles a phonological rule in the classical
sense of the SPE framework (Chomsky & Halle 1968).
Reduplication itself is not considered as a salient characteristic and a phenomenon of the
Indo- European language family, nor the classic feature and nature of the Greek or Latin but
in the general way, it is mostly found in the languages of the world. Sapir pointed out that

“Nothing is more natural than the prevalence of reduplication, in other words, the repetition
of all or part of the radical element” (Sapir, 1921:76) Reduplication is an areal feature of the
South Asian Languages. The process of reduplication plays an important role in the creation
of a new single lexical item with a slight semantic modification of the root or stem word,
without changing the grammatical category of root or base word in languages.

TYPES OF REDUPLICATION

Reduplication can be widely divided into two broad types, namely Lexical Reduplication
(LR) and Morphological Reduplication (MR). Under the shadow of Morphological
Reduplication, sound symbolism, mimic words, onomatopoeia, iconicity, imitative, ideophones
which are collectively called as Expressive, are discussed. Under the heading of Lexical
Reduplication, Echo-words or echo-formations, Compounds and Word reduplications, are
described below.

MORPHOLOGICAL REDUPLICATION

Morphological reduplication is one of the two types of reduplication described by Abbi

(1992). She defines morphological reduplication as “minimally meaningful and segmentally
indivisible morphemes which are constituted of iterated syllables.” Thus, the base and the
iterated part together constitute a single morpheme which is also a lexeme. Onomatopoeic,
imitatives, certain instances of sound symbolism and mimic words are examples of
morphological reduplication. Abbi (1992) and Diffloth (1976) put all these terms under
Expressive. Emeneau (1969) uses the term expressive for onomatopoeias.

EXPRESSIVES

Diffloth (1976) suggests that “we must be prepared to see the expressive as a whole
decomposed in such manner, to discard the conventional notions of root and morphology, and
to treat expressives as micro-sentences made up of distinctive features,”

Reduplication of iterated syllables is generally onomatopoeic in nature. Expressives in

Dhundhari and Adi language are used to denote all the five senses of perception, that is, the
sense of smell, sight, touch, hearing and taste. Expressive is also used to denote kinship
terminology and states of mind and manner adverbs in Adi language
Expressives in Dhundhari
SENSE OF SIGHT
məɽ məɽ “ to smile in disgust”
ʈukur ʈukur “to see constantly”
məč məč “small eyed person”

DEPICTION OF UNTIDENESS
kəč kəč “muddy”
dənd pʰənd “filthy”
kʰəčəɽ pəčəɽ “hotch potch”
lədəɽ pədəɽ “one over the other”
gič pič “congested”

SENSE OF TOUCH
čip čip “sticky”
gəl gəli “tickling”
kʰur dəri “rough”

SENSE OF TASTE
čər mərɑʈ “spicy

SENSE OF NOISE
čəɽ čəɽ “The noise produced by the
opening and closing of doors”
pəɽ pəɽ “falling of water”
Kʰər kʰər “noise produced by windows”
ɖəm ɖəm “noise produced by drums”

MANNER OF EATING
ləbəɽ ləbəɽ “to eat very fast”

subəɽ subəɽ “to drink something”

KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY
kɑ ko “grandfather”
čɑ čo “uncle”
mɑ mo “maternal uncle”

In case of kinship terminology ,when we address the person directly then it’s full
reduplication for eg. kɑ kɑ but if we refer the person in a conversation then partial
reduplication takes place where the vowel ‘ɑ’ of the first syllable is being replaced by the
vowel ‘o’ of the second syllable.

STATES OF MIND AND MANNER ADVERBS IN DHUNDHARI

gətgɛlʲo “solution”
bəčəriya bəčəriya “cut into pieces”
nətər kɛni “otherwise”
ɖoɖɑ bɑɖɪ “side by side”
hɑtɑ hut “doing the work with your own hands”
ukəɽ čukəɽ “disturbed”
čəɳi məɳikso “very little”
ləb ɖʰəb “nearby”
čurr murr “ repent”

QUANTIFIERS
(a) do “two” do- do “two and only two”
(b) tin “three” tin- tin “by three”

MORPHOLOGICAL PARADIGMS OF EXPRESSIVES IN

DHUNDHARI

Expressive items have a morphological paradigm. It can be generated morphological paradigms

with different lexical items by derivational processes in Dhundhari language in India and other
Indian languages too.

Root bʰəɽ
Stem bʰəɽ- bʰəɽ
Derived Noun bʰəɽ- bʰəɽaʈ

EXAMPLES
1. bɑ mosu bʰəɽ gi
She me collision go.3fsg.PST
“she collided with me”
In this example the word “ bʰəɽ” is used as a verb

2. bʰəɽ- bʰəɽɑʈ mət kar

noise don’t do
“don’t make noise”
In this example “bʰəɽ- bʰəɽɑʈ” is used as a derived noun. It is very difficult to deduce and
translate the expressive lexical items because it is completely associated with the society,
culture, tradition, and regions, various lexical items are derived through derivational process

LEXICAL REDUPLICATION

Lexical reduplication can be defined as one lexical item or lexeme which comprises two or
more segmentally identical parts or words. It is not a group of complex form of lexical items.
Lexical reduplication refers to a complete or partial repetition of a word or lexeme. Abbi (1992)
defines lexical reduplication as “Complete Lexical Reduplication is constituted of two identical
(bimodal) words, e.g. In Hindi “gərəm gərəm” “hot” or beʈʰe- beʈʰe “while sitting” is derived
from the modifier gɘrɘm ‘hot’ and verb bEThe ‘to sit’, respectively. Partial Reduplication is
constituted of partial repetition of a word either phonologically or semantically,e.g.
Khana uana “food etc.” or compound such as khana-pina (eat+drink) “standard of living” are
case of partial reduplication in Hindi. Lexical reduplication, unlike morphological
reduplication, is not minimally meaningful and thus can be further divided as they are formed
of two identical words or two non-identical phonological words. From the grammatical point
of view, however, they act as a single lexical category.

lexical
reduplication

Echo Word
Compound
formation reduplication

Fig.1 Types of Lexical Reduplication

Echo Formation

In Echo-formation, an echo word has been defined as a partially repeated form of the base
word, means either the initial phoneme (consonant(C) or vowel (V)) or the syllable of the
base is replaced by another phoneme or another syllable. The replacer (phoneme or syllable)
sound sequences are more or less fixed and rigid (Abbi, 1992). In other words, in echo word,
only the initial syllable or phoneme of the base word is replaced by echo syllable or
phoneme.
EXAMPLES EXAMPLES
(DHUNDHARI) (ADI)
nɑm ɑm “nam and the like” ɑmik sɑmi “ice and the like”

Kɑm ɑm “work and the like” gɑɖu sɑɖu “blanket and the like”
kursi ursi “chair and the like” ɑpim sɑpim “food and the like”
kʰɑɳo ɑɳo “food and the like ɑlɑk sɑlɑk “hand and the like”

PHONOLOGICAL RULE
Echo formation in Dhundhari is formed by duplicating the base word and the initial
consonant is dropped whereas in Adi language base word is reduplicating with the addition of
consonants in the initial position if the base word starts with a vowel „a-‟.

COMPOUND

Compound is the one among the three kinds of lexical reduplication. It plays an important
role in word formation process in Dhundhari. It is a kind of partial reduplicated compound by
joining the semantically related, identical and opposite words to convey a wide semantic
meaning and totally and completely differs from the single lexical word. The other two kinds
of lexical reduplication are the Echo-formation and the Word reduplication. In Sanskrit, this
compound is called as „conjunctive‟ (dvandva) compound. K. Rangan (2000) describes
“compound as a construction in which two or more words join together without any
interruption”. Two words which are having different form but having similar meaning, are
joining together to form a compound. This type of process was called intensive or inclusive
compound formation (Mahadeva Sastri, 1954 & Bhaskararo, 1977). Abbi (1975, 1992)
suggests that compound is considered as instances of partial reduplication. The compounds
refers to the paired construction in which the second word is not an exact repetition of the
first but has some similarity or relationship to the first word either on the semantic or on the
phonetic level.
Compound can be formed either by combining the semantically similar words or by conjoining
semantically different word.

EXAMPLES EXAMPLES
(DHUNDHARI) (ADI)
həsbo kʰelbo pakɨ nɨkkɨ “cut-chop”
uʈʰbo bɛʈʰbo alə alak “leg-hand”
kɑm dʰəndo
hɑtʰ pɛr
lattɑ kəpɽɑ

WORD REDUPLICATION

The word reduplication is a linguistic term that refers to the complete or partial repetition or
of the base of the word. This reduplication can be considered as a unit of syllable or a large
group of words. The word reduplication can be further subdivided into three parts, namely
complete word reduplication, Partial reduplication and Discontinuous reduplication.

Word
Reduplication

Complete Partial Discontinuous

Reduplication Reduplication Reduplication

Figure 2. Types of word reduplication

EXAMPLES OF NOUN EXAMPLES
(DHUNDHARI) (ADI)
gɑo gɑo əkum əkum “house house”

gʰər gʰər doluŋg doluŋg “village village”

bɑɭək bɑɭək

EXAMPLES OF PRONOUNS EXAMPLES

(DHUNDHARI) (ADI)
kuɳ kuɳ seko seko “who all”
kuɳku kuɳku inko inko “where where”

EXAMPLES OF WORD REDUPLICATION LEVEL AT SENTENCE LEVEL.

pɑrʈi me kon kon ɑyɑ (HINDI)
pɑrʈi mɛ kuɳ kuɳ ɑyo (DHUNDHARI)
parʈi lɔ seko seko ɑtoŋ (ADI)
Party who who come. PERF
“who all came to the party”

Reduplication of Nouns and Pronouns are used to give emphasis. It does carry a certain
feeling , indication of simply eagerness or curiousity.

EXAMPLES OF ADJECTIVES EXAMPLES

(DHUNDHARI) (ADI)
čokʰi čokʰi bɔtə bɔtə “big big”
piɭi piɭi kɑmpo kɑmpo “good good”
ləmbo ləmbo ŋorəŋ ŋorəŋ “black black”

The adjective is a modifier of various grammatical category. Here “piɭi piɭi” shows the
intensification of adjective, it gives an intensifier morpheme “-ish” (yellowish). Whereas this
intensifier morpheme is missing in Adi where “ŋorəŋ ŋorəŋ” would mean all black in colour
not blackish.

EXAMPLES OF ADVERBS
(DHUNDHARI)
bego bego “fastly fastly”
čʰɑnɛ čʰɑnɛ “quietly quietly”

1.rinu cʰɑnɛ cʰɑnɛ čɑl ri či ( adverb of manner )

Reenu quietly quietly walk PROG 3fsg AUX PST

2.ničɛ ničɛ pɑɳi čo (adverb of location)

Under under water AUX.pst

3.ba cʰori bič bič mɛ so jɑu čɛ (adverb of time )

She girl middle middle sleep go.pst.3msg aux

In the example of Adverbs, adverb in a sentence can be used to indicate or intensify the
action or event in reduplicated form. Adverb is a modifier of such things, manner (mostly),
location and time. When the adverb is reduplicated in a sentence then it gives intensified
meaning of the event or action.

EXAMPLES OF VERBS

bɑ dʰirɛ dʰirɛ čɑl riʏo cʰo

He slowly slowly walking was.

“He was walking slowly slowly”

tu kʰɑ kʰɑ giʏo cʰo

you where where go.PST

“where all did you go”


bɑ bɛʈʰo bɛʈʰo tʰək giʏo
He sitting sitting tired(v1) go(v2)
“he got tired of sitting”
EXPRESSIVES IN ADI

Adi language is very rich in describing manner of walking, every manner of walking can be
distinguished with the help of reduplication be it complete or partial. Expressives in Adi
language can be visualized in different features like that of sense of perception, acoustics noises,
kinship terminology, states of mind and manner adverbs.

FIVE SENSES OF PERCEPTION INADI

1. SENSE OF SIGHT
kɑmpo tætpo “gorgeous”
bəlum bəkum “dirty”

2. SENSE OF TOUCH
ǰɑpkɑtǰɑprɑt “sticky”
rəgəp rəgɑp “sweat”
ɑrə pepe “sharpness of sword”

3. SENSE OF SMELL
nɑmsu nɑmyuŋ “foul”
nɑmkir nɑmyir “smell of underarms”
nɑmpo nɑmyo “aroma”

4. SENSE OF TASTE
dopo tipo “delicious”
tinɑm ŋɑmnɑm “sweet”
kosaŋ kogum “bitter”

5. SENSE OF HEARING
It has different acoustic sounds.
 Animal noises 
ŋuek ŋuek “pig”
titi titi “ducks”
 Nature sounds 
 ǰir ǰir “flowing of rivers”
bi bi “blowing of winds”
tek tek “dripping of water”
 Inanimate objects 
siriŋg siriŋg “jingling of traditional chain called
rəmi rəmo „sondorong‟ “jingling of traditional beads
kiriŋ kiriŋ called „ǰɑmpilɑŋ‟ “jingling of chains”

6. KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY
yi yi “youngest maternal uncle”
ǰo ǰo “grand mom”

mi mi “elder sister “
te te “eldest maternal uncle”

One important observation has been found out in case of kinship terms , words associated
with the maternal side is reduplicated whereas no such phenomenon is visible with the
kinship terms of paternal side.

MANNER OF WALKING (ADI)

mɑnɑm “to walk”
pɑnlɑ pɑnlɑ “toddle like a child”
uŋir uŋir “walking of an old man”
yonlɑ yonlɑ “walking quickly”
mɑlɑ mɑlɑ “walking slowly nad silently”
mɑŋki mɑŋki “to waddle”
giŋ giŋ “rough with heavy steps”
mɑkɑr mɑyɑr “of an angry man”
memlɑ memlɑ “walking blindly”
ədəm ələ “walking carelessely”
en tɑrpen “walking lazily”
lomlɑ lomlɑ “to walk hurriedly with light steps”
tumnɑm tumnɑm “walking confused”
In case of Adi language manner adverbs play a vital role, it brings out very minute and
distinctions in a performance of an action, in Adi there are 13 manner adverbs “to walk” ,
different style of walking will have different Expressive morphology in Adi language that
makes it very rich in Expressives.

MANNER OF SLEEPING (ADI)

ipnɑm “to sleep”
pɑtɑr pɑyɑr “to sleep carelessely”
kətkɑr kətyɑr “sleeping of an angry man”
iptɑp ipyɑt “when one is out of control, feeling sleepy”
kətkup kətlɑt “uncomfortable while sleeping”

QUANTIFIERS

Adi does not offer reduplication in case of quantifiers which can be seen in Dhundhari.

DISCONTINUOUS WORD REDUPLICATION

Discontinuous Word Reduplication (DWR) can be defined in terms of reduplication of the

phonemes or the syllable of the base word and when it takes an infix between the base form
and the reduplicated form, then it is called Discontinuous Word Reduplication. The inserted
elements may be some words such as postpositions, negation marker (nə), connector elements
and empty syllable and so on (Parimalagantham, 2009).

(DHUNDHARI) (ADI)
ʃo ko ʃo “exact” akon maŋkom akon “someone or other”
aɳoɳ maŋkom aɳoŋ “ atleast”
koi nə koi “someone”
pɛlo hi pɛlo “first one”
dekʰtɑ hi dekʰtɑ “in front of your eyes”

In case of discontinuous reduplication, Dhundhari gives the same pattern as of Hindi where
“hi”, “ko” are behaving as the connector both the base word and the reduplicated form of
base word is connected by an inserted element, and in Adi “maŋkom” is the connector.
Structure of discontinuous reduplication

[A Base Word]---{inserted elements}---[Reduplicated Form]

Koi nə koi (Dhundhari) “someone”

ɑkon maŋkom ɑkon (Adi) “someone or the other”

fig.4. Types of Reduplication Structures

CONCLUSION
The phenomenon of reduplication is a morphological process which plays a significant role in
creating a single new lexical item in Dhundhari and Adi . Even though both the languages fall
under two different language families but they do have certain similar characteristics which
are typological in nature. In Dhundhari colour modifiers and quantifiers are reduplicated
whereas on the other hand Adi does not offer reduplication in case of colour modifiers and
quantifiers. It has also been found out that in Dhundhari reduplication is observed that
dhundhari exhibits reduplication in both maternal and paternal side kinship terminology
unlike Adi where reduplication only occurs in maternal side kinship terminology.
REFERENCES

Abbi, Anvita. 2001. A manual of linguistic fieldwork and structures of Indian languages.
Munich: Lincom Europa.

Abbi, Anvita (1992) Reduplication in south Asian Languages: An Areal, Typological

and Historical Study. Allied Publishers Limited.

mapsofindia. (n.d.). Retrieved november 16, 2012, from

http://www.mapsofindia.com/arunachal-pradesh/society/language.html

wikipedia. (n.d.). Retrieved november 15, 2012, from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhundari_language
 APPENDIX I

MAP OF RAJASTHAN SHOWING DHUNDHARI SPEAKING AREAS

 APPENDIX II

MAP OF ARUNACHAL PRADESH SHOWING ADI SPEAKING AREAS

 APPENDIX III

REDUPLICATION QUESTIONNAIRE

1. Please have some tea,etc.

2. He has gone to buy some stationary.
3. Two books were stolen
4. Longish bamboo was lying there.
5. He was walking slowly slowly.
6. He came again and again.
7. What all did he eat?
8. Who all came to the party.
9. Where all Ram found Sita’s ornaments.
10. He got tired of sitting sitting.
11. I got bored writing letters.
12. She spoke while eating.
13. The child fell down while walking on the footpath.
14. Red red apples are juicy.
15. Bring sweet sweet mangoes.
16. How are you going to jump over these high high hedges.
17. Give me little little of everything.
18. Don’t come after me
19. Sita fell down while walking.
20. It’s my first love.
21. He came here quickly.
22. This sari is somewhat greenish in colour.
23. He spoke while selling paan.
 APPENDIX IV

Informants’ Details

Topic of Research – Reduplication in Dhundhari and Adi

Name of Researcher- Sonam Meena

1. Name -

2. Age -

3. Gender ( Female/Male) -

4. Mother Tongue –

Mother Tongue Speak Read Write

5. The names of other languages that you can speak, read and write and also mark
your proficiency level in these languages.

Language Speak Read Write

Date -
 APPENDIX V

Informants’ Details

Topic of Research – Reduplication in Dhundhari and Adi

Name of Researcher- Sonam Meena

1. Name -

2. Age -

3. Gender ( Female/Male) -

4. Mother Tongue –

Mother Tongue Speak Read Write

5. The names of other languages that you can speak, read and write and also mark your
proficiency level in these languages.

Language Speak Read Write

Date -