Reduplication of a verb root after an inflectional affix

[Ryan Pennington]

I would like to know how to handle a particular type of reduplication in FLEx:

 

taka comes from ta-ka, where ta is ‘do’ and -ka is an inflectional affix for same subject medial verb. One can also say takata. Here the verb root is affixed after the medial same subject suffix. Generally the medial same subject suffix carries only a sequential meaning ‘do X and then’. This changes it to simultaneous ‘do X while’.

 

takata bagok.

(he) did it and then (he) came.

 

takata bagok.

(he) did it as he came.

 

Is there anything I can do which will allow the parser to parse this correctly?

 

Thanks for any tips,

Ryan Pennington

SIL-PNG

[Ryan Pennington]

Sorry, I meant for the first example to read:

 

taka bagok.

(he) did it and then (he) came.

 

Ryan

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the discussion group "FLEx list". This group is hosted by Google Groups and is open for anyone to browse.
To post to this group, send email to flex...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to flex-list+...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/flex-list

[Andy Black]

Ryan:

This looks *very* interesting.

Could you please give use some more examples of this reduplication?   What happens with other root shapes (say, longer than CV)?

Also, does this language have prefixes as well as suffixes that show up on reduplicated forms?

Thanks,

--Andy

[Dr John Roberts]

Sorry, Ryan, I haven’t been paying attention to the FLEx list. I have been working on other things.
 
We have this kind of reduplication in Amele (Papuan). See Roberts, John R. (1991) ‘Reduplication in Amele’ in T. Dutton, ed. Papers in Papuan linguistics, No. 1, 115-146. Pacific Linguistics, A-73, 1991.

And see (1)-(4).
 
1)     bi-bil-ig
      SIM-sit-1sg.SU.SS      ‘as I sit’
 
2)     o-od-ig
      SIM-do-1sg.SU.SS      ‘as I do’
 
3)     fulul-i-ig
      flap-SIM-1sg.SU.SS    ‘as I flap’
 
4)     cesul-du-d-ug
      help-SIM-3sg.DO-1sg.SU.SS             ‘as I help him’
 
To handle this kind of reduplication First, I have a couple of reduplication entries in my lexicon as below:
 
Lexeme Form: CV
Morph Type: prefix
Citation Form: CV
Gloss: SIM
Definition: simultaneous event
Affix Allomorph: [C1^1][V1^1]
Morph Type: prefix
Environments: / _ [C1^1][V1^1];
 
Lexeme Form: V
Morph Type: prefix
Citation Form: V
Gloss: SIM
Definition: simultaneous event
Affix Allomorph: [V1^1]
Morph Type: prefix
Environments: / _ [V1^1];
 
These entries handle the stem initial reduplication in (1) and (2) above. I then have variants of CV and V specified as Morph Type: suffix instead of prefix and these handle the word internal reduplication in (3) and (4) above.
 
John Roberts

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the discussion group "FLEx list". This group is hosted by Google Groups and is open for anyone to browse.
To post to this group, send email to flex...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to flex-list+...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/flex-list

-- 

John R Roberts
SIL International Linguistics Consultant
dr_john...@sil.org
+44 (0)1494 510084

[Ryan Pennington]

First of all, thank you very much John for that reference. I will certainly check that out. Your examples are indeed very similar to the one I presented. Just the other day I was reading about Amele inalienable possession in Dixon’s Basic linguistic theory. I’ve enjoyed how much you have made available.

 

Andy, I unfortunately only have that one example. Well, I have several instances in the same story of that same verb. I knew it may have been a little premature to ask about it, but I also had heard of this type of reduplication before in PNG, so I had a pretty good feeling that this is what is going on. I do have many types of reduplication, but most of them are more straightforward full reduplication, carrying the meaning of plurality, intensity, or duration.

 

One other similar phenomena I have noticed, for which I have only two examples, is a verb root with its medial suffix (just like the examples I showed before), followed by a different verb root:

 

wi-ka-do

make.bed-SS-sleep

sleeping mat

 

mu-ta-do

cover-SS-sleep

blanket

 

Obviously the affect is significantly different here, as the result is a noun rather than a verb. Unfortunately, the data is limited – both of these examples involving do ‘sleep’.

 

Anyway, it’s all interesting and fun =).

 

Ryan

 

From: flex...@googlegroups.com [mailto:flex...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Dr John Roberts
Sent: Friday, 9 December 2011 6:49 PM
To: flex...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [FLEx] Reduplication of a verb root after an inflectional affix

 

Sorry, Ryan, I haven’t been paying attention to the FLEx list. I have been working on other things.
 
We have this kind of reduplication in Amele (Papuan). See Roberts, John R. (1991) ‘Reduplication in Amele’ in T. Dutton, ed. Papers in Papuan linguistics, No. 1, 115-146. Pacific Linguistics, A-73, 1991.

And see (1)-(4).
 

bi-bil-ig
      SIM-sit-1sg.SU.SS          ‘as I sit’
 

o-od-ig
      SIM-do-1sg.SU.SS         ‘as I do’
 

fulul-i-ig
      flap-SIM-1sg.SU.SS       ‘as I flap’
 

[Dr John Roberts]

On 09/12/2011 11:27, Ryan Pennington wrote:

First of all, thank you very much John for that reference. I will certainly check that out. Your examples are indeed very similar to the one I presented. Just the other day I was reading about Amele inalienable possession in Dixon’s Basic linguistic theory. I’ve enjoyed how much you have made available.

 

Thanks, Ryan. I am just doing my job as an SIL linguist. :-)

John

[Andy Black]

John,

I must be missing something because I do not see the same kind of reduplication in your Amele examples as Ryan gives in his example.

I see your examples as all being contiguous to the reduplicant.  Ryan's has an intervening suffix.  What am I missing?

Thanks,

--Andy

[Andy Black]

On 12/9/2011 4:27 AM, Ryan Pennington wrote:

Andy, I unfortunately only have that one example. Well, I have several instances in the same story of that same verb. I knew it may have been a little premature to ask about it, but I also had heard of this type of reduplication before in PNG, so I had a pretty good feeling that this is what is going on. I do have many types of reduplication, but most of them are more straightforward full reduplication, carrying the meaning of plurality, intensity, or duration.

As a general principle, whenever you have something complicated that only occurs in one form, try treating it lexically (i.e. put the form in a lexical entry) rather than trying to get the automated parser to analyze it for you by 'rule', so to speak.  That is, if the phenomenon is not productive, treat it as an exception rather than as a rule.

 

One other similar phenomena I have noticed, for which I have only two examples, is a verb root with its medial suffix (just like the examples I showed before), followed by a different verb root:

 

wi-ka-do

make.bed-SS-sleep

sleeping mat

 

mu-ta-do

cover-SS-sleep

blanket

 

Obviously the affect is significantly different here, as the result is a noun rather than a verb. Unfortunately, the data is limited – both of these examples involving do ‘sleep’.

Again, if this is very limited, you can treat it lexically, at least for now.

 

Anyway, it’s all interesting and fun =).

Yes, it is!

--Andy

[Dr John Roberts]

Andy,

You are right! I guess Ryan would have to change the environment to this:

Environments: / [C^1][V^1] ka __

John

[Marty and Tina]

Hi Andy,
The original subject line in this string appealed to us,
"reduplication a verb root after an inflectional affix."
We have been trying to figure out how to handle the reduplication in
our language, Baga Sitemu (BSP)

Reduplication in BSP means "repeated action"

ŋaŋgbinti Sawul domp
ŋa- ŋ- gbinti Sawul domp
3pl- IND- cut off Saul head
They cut off Saul's head
I Sam. 31:9

iŋgbint gbinti kɔ
i- ŋ- gbint gbinti kɔ
1s- IND- cut cut 3s
I cut (into pieces) her
Judges 20:6

We tried to use the reduplication morpheme -[...] recommended in the
help file, but FLEx would not read it.

kəloku
kə- loku
INF- speak

kəlok loku
kə- loku loku
INF- speak speak
chat

oŋsut kɔ
o- ŋ- sut kɔ
3s- IND- hit 3s
He hit him

oŋsut sut kumba
o- ŋ- sut sut kumba
3s- IND- hit hit door
He knocked (at) the door

pəcsut sutnɛ abəkəc
pəc- sut sut -nɛ abəkəc
PTC.3s hit hit -REFL chest
beating himself on the chest

Some suffixes can be repeated on each root, or they may just appear on
the final root.

Thanks for your help!
Marty Ganong and Carla Unseth
PBT Guinea

On Dec 8 2011, 11:59 pm, Andy Black <andy_bl...@sil.org> wrote:
> Ryan:
> This looks *very* interesting.
> Could you please give use some more examples of this reduplication?   What happens with other root shapes (say, longer than CV)?
> Also, does this language have prefixes as well as suffixes that show up on reduplicated forms?
> Thanks,
> --Andy

> On 12/7/2011 6:11 PM, Ryan Pennington wrote:...
>
> read more »

[Andy Black]

On 2/3/2012 5:38 AM, Marty and Tina wrote:

Hi Andy,
The original subject line in this string appealed to us,
"reduplication a verb root after an inflectional affix."
We have been trying to figure out how to handle the reduplication in
our language, Baga Sitemu (BSP)

Reduplication in BSP means "repeated action"

ŋaŋgbinti Sawul domp
ŋa- ŋ- gbinti Sawul domp
3pl- IND- cut off Saul head
They cut off Saul's head
I Sam. 31:9

iŋgbint gbinti kɔ
i- ŋ- gbint gbinti kɔ
1s- IND- cut cut 3s
I cut (into pieces) her
Judges 20:6

It looks like from this and the other examples you nicely provided below that the reduplicated form is always written as a separate word.  If this is the case, then neither of the two automated parsers of FLEx will not be able to help.  (The automated parsers are available via the Parser menu item.)

We tried to use the reduplication morpheme -[...] recommended in the
help file, but FLEx would not read it.

This is most likely due to either of two things:

1. The reduplicated form is a separate word, not a suffix (which is what -[...] means).
2. You were using the 'manual' parser in the interlinear and not one of the automated parsers (which would not have worked either since these are written as separate words, apparently).

Hope this helps at least some...

--Andy

[Carla Unseth]

Andy,

We haven't been able to access the group in a while, which is why this
reply has taken so long!

We are writing the reduplication with a hyphen, though Marty didn't
include the hyphen in the examples he gave you:

kelok-loku

oŋsut-sut

pəcsut-sutnɛ

etc.

The parser does not pick it up even with the hyphen. We have --[...]
in the lexicon which should signal that it is both a suffix and has a
word-forming hyphen. We have added the hyphen to the word-forming
characters list, so that doesn't seem to be the problem. It works if
we add each individual reduplication as an allophone to the entry --
[...], but that seems to defeat the purpose of even having a
reduplication morpheme in the lexicon!

We believe that the reduplication is derivational, so it sometimes
reduplicates just the stem, and sometimes the stem plus the
derivational affix:

kəbos-bosər
kə-bos-bos-ər
INF-borrow-RDP-DISTR
'to borrow here and there'

pomotər-motər
po-mot-er-mot-er
NounClass-shine-DISTR-shine-DISTR
'shiny things'

Could the fact that it is derivational be causing the problem?

Thanks!

Carla Unseth and Marty Ganong
PBT Guinea

[Andy Black]

Hi, Carla and Marty,

Thanks for clarifying the orthographic conventions you are following.

First, the bad news.

If you are using the manual way of interlinearizing, then the best that can be done is to continue to add allomorphs.  The manual way of interlinearizing merely looks up forms in the lexicon - it does not have any other 'smarts'.

But FLEx does have two automated parsers: the default one is called XAMPLE; the new experimental one is called Hermit Crab.  You use these via the Parser menu item.

If you are trying to use the default XAMPLE parser, you have run into a limitation in what it can do when trying to use full reduplication (which is what the [...] means).  Section 3.2.1 "Full Reduplication" of the Conceptual Intro to Parsing document says (near the end): "The way we are modeling full reduplication in FieldWorks Language Explorer, the root must be at one end and then any affixes (including the reduplication morpheme) must either be all prefixes or be all suffixes."  [You can access the Conceptual Intro to Parsing document via the Help menu item / Resources / Introduction to Parsing...]

In your case, there are affixes which come before the reduplicated material.  For example in    

	kelok-loku

the -[...] means that the parser will look for something like
 

	kelok-keloku

which, of course, is not what you want.

So that's the bad news.

The good news is that the experimental Hermit Crab parser *can* handle what you need (although you may find that it takes a bit of work to set up).  See Appendix B in the Conceptual Intro to Parsing document for more information on the Hermit Crab parser.  To turn on the Hermit Crab parser, go to the Parser menu item / Chooser Parser and select the Phonological Rule-based Parser.

Besides making sure every phoneme in your orthography is defined (including the hyphen), you will need to convert your --[...] suffix lexical entry to an affix process rule which defines the reduplication pattern (which will need to look like the one in example (153) in the Conceptual Intro to Parsing document).   Go to your --[...] entry and

1. Click on the Lexeme Form
2. Click on the blue-triangle-with-a-circle-around-it icon just to the left of 'Lexeme Form.'
3. Choose Convert to Affix Process.
4. You will get something like this:
   
5. Click to the right of the 1 in the Result column
6. Click on Morpheme Boundary (+)
7. Click on Phoneme and choose your hyphen 'phoneme'
8. Click on the 1

Your rule should now look like this:

This tells the Hermit Crab parser that the -[...] morpheme will match whenever the material before it is the same as the material after a hyphen.  The length of that material can be whatever matches (unlike the XAMPLE parser where the material has to be all the way from the beginning of the word in your case).

Doing this, I  got both

kəbos-bosər and pomotər-motər

to work with the Try A Word Parser dialog tool.

I hope this helps.

--Andy