Another contrastive focus reduplication
Raymond S. Wise
doubling of a word or string of words which "restricts the interpretation of
the copied element to a 'real' or prototypical reading."[1] We've spoken of
this phenomenon in these newsgroups. An example is "You make the Jello salad
and I'll make the salad salad," where the reduplication "salad salad" refers
to a green salad. Another example would be one of the Esperanto terms for
"ordinary mail" or "snail mail": "poshtposhto," based upon "poshto" and
contrasting with "retposhto" ( = "E-mail," literally "Web mail" ) which is
an example of a contrastive focus reduplication which has been turned into a
retronym.
Last night on *Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn* I heard another example. A
guest mentioned "9/11" ("nine-eleven"). Quinn asked him "You don't mean 9/11
this year, do you?" and the guest replied, "No, 9/11 9/11."
Note:
[1] That definition, and the term itself, comes from "Contrastive Focus
Reduplication in English (The SALAD-salad Paper)" by Jila Ghomeshi, Ray
Jackendoff, Nicole Rosen, and Kevin Russell which can be read at
http://www.umanitoba.ca/linguistics/ghomeshi/redup12.pdf
Some examples of contrastive focus reduplication are given at
http://www.umanitoba.ca/linguistics/russell/redup-corpus.html
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Larry G
> A "contrastive focus reduplication" is a name which has been given to the
> doubling of a word or string of words which "restricts the interpretation
of
> the copied element to a 'real' or prototypical reading."[1] We've spoken
of
> this phenomenon in these newsgroups. An example is "You make the Jello
salad
> and I'll make the salad salad," where the reduplication "salad salad"
refers
> to a green salad. Another example would be one of the Esperanto terms for
> "ordinary mail" or "snail mail": "poshtposhto," based upon "poshto" and
> contrasting with "retposhto" ( = "E-mail," literally "Web mail" ) which is
> an example of a contrastive focus reduplication which has been turned into
a
> retronym.
>
> Last night on *Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn* I heard another example. A
> guest mentioned "9/11" ("nine-eleven"). Quinn asked him "You don't mean
9/11
> this year, do you?" and the guest replied, "No, 9/11 9/11."
There is a common mythology (joke) that women say these word doublings more
often than men. But, I find men say them just as often as women.
It also occurs with languages:
English English (UK English or England English)
French French (Metropolitan French)
etc.
Larry
Raymond S. Wise
news:belm5s$6dguf$1...@ID-37509.news.uni-berlin.de...
For the record, it was a man who uttered "9/11 9/11" on Colin Quinn's
program. I have heard "party party" in the wild, uttered by a woman.
Mike Oliver
>> guest mentioned "9/11" ("nine-eleven"). Quinn asked him "You don't mean 9/11
>> this year, do you?" and the guest replied, "No, 9/11 9/11."
>
> English English (UK English or England English)
I don't think that one is an example. The second "English" is the
language; the first one is the adjectival form of "England". So
English English is the sort of English spoken in England. Makes
perfect sense to me.
Larry G
Well, most of the time all of these instances of double wording
(reduplication) make sense to me. It could be as you described or the
specific type of English from the general English language. No different
than the specific 9/11 out of all 9/11 dates or this year, or a "salad
salad" (though I hadn't heard that one before), no?
Larry
Raymond S. Wise
Here's a complication to the whole matter. I personally know one Englishman
and have read of others who very much dislike the term "English English"
(and "British English," for that matter). To them, the dialect in
question--which they wouldn't acknowledge as being a dialect--is "English,"
and it is "American English," "Australian English," and so forth, which
require an additional word.
A person who uses contrastive focus reduplication is identifying the
repeated word to be the prototypical or "real" form, but those who dislike
the term "English English" as much as my friend does, while they would
certainly think of "English" as the prototypical or "real" form, would
*avoid* the reduplication, since they consider "English English" to be a
pleonasm rather than a useful term.
Bob Cunningham
<illinoi...@mninter.net> said:
[ . . . ]
> A person who uses contrastive focus reduplication is identifying the
> repeated word to be the prototypical or "real" form, but those who dislike
> the term "English English" as much as my friend does, while they would
> certainly think of "English" as the prototypical or "real" form, would
> *avoid* the reduplication, since they consider "English English" to be a
> pleonasm rather than a useful term.
Those people are out of touch with the times. They would be
well advised to read the article "English English" in _The
Oxford Companion to the English Language_.
An excerpt from that article:
The usage was rare until the 1980s, when, with its
synonym _Anglo-English_, it began to be used in
professional discussions of English.
But in Message-ID: <4e6mq3$8...@reader2.ix.netcom.com>#1/1
dated 25 January 1996, I made the following remarks:
Footnote:
I may be the only one in the world so far using the
word "Angloid". I have suggested it in the past as
the ideal name for the family of "English" languages
spoken round the world.
If a name like "Angloid" were to be adopted, the
just claim of the residents of England to the sole
use of the name "English Language" could be
satisfied.
The residents of the USA could then call their
speech "American Angloid", the Australians,
"Australian Angloid", and the English people could
call theirs either "English" or "English Angloid"
depending upon the demands of the context.
I further suggest that if the other countries wanted
a short form for their speech in situations where a
distinction was not required, they could all call
their languages simply "Angloid".
I should add that some people have said that
"Anglic" has been proposed for a generic name for
English languages. As I have said in the past, the
name "Anglic" has already been used with a quite
different meaning (an international auxiliary
language devised by R. E. Zachrisson; see RHUD2 or
NSOED/93); "Angloid" would be less ambiguous.
At the time I proposed the use of "Angloid", someone who had
seen too many sci-fi movies tried to argue that the suffix
"-oid" suggests something ugly and misshapen. It means
simply "having the form of, like, similar to, as _android,
colloid, metalloid, ovoid, spheroid, steroid,_ etc."
(_NSOED_).
I've long heard that the Earth is an oblate spheroid,
meaning that it's like a sphere, but isn't quite one. (I've
read somewhere recently that the Earth is now called an
oblate ellipsoid.)
If "English" were restricted to a language used in England,
other languages that are like that language but not quite
the same could quite properly be called Angloid.
John O'Flaherty
Would those examples be 'contrastive', when the contrast isn't stated
explicitly?
--
john
Richard R. Hershberger
I think it depends on the intent of the speaker. Yes, it could mean
"English as spoken in England" but it could also mean "'real'
English". It is impossible to tell which is meant without more
context.
Richard R. Hershberger
Larry G
Englishman
> and have read of others who very much dislike the term "English English"
> (and "British English," for that matter). To them, the dialect in
> question--which they wouldn't acknowledge as being a dialect--is
"English,"
> and it is "American English," "Australian English," and so forth, which
> require an additional word.
>
> A person who uses contrastive focus reduplication is identifying the
> repeated word to be the prototypical or "real" form, but those who dislike
> the term "English English" as much as my friend does, while they would
> certainly think of "English" as the prototypical or "real" form, would
> *avoid* the reduplication, since they consider "English English" to be a
> pleonasm rather than a useful term.
Sigh, I know. The problem is that there are certain written characteristics
in "English English" that are common to the dialects even though Yorkshire
is different from Home Counties, which is different from Cornwall, (the -our
words for example) as there are certain characteristics in American English
that we have in common even though Bronx is different from Valley Girl is
different from Chicago is different from Charleston, South Carolina, etc.
So, within the confines of this thread, isn't the duplication of words
*defining* the *real* word. Like the Esperanto example, if you say "mail
mail", you are referring to the word mail in its original sense trying to
narrow it down from the broad sense which now includes everything from voice
mail to electronic mail. In that context, I don't see how a Briton could be
offended by narrowing down their dialect to the *real* version, argh.
The name game for the UKGBNI is a no-win situation, lol. I loathe
mentioning the name to anyone from there. I don't want to offend the
nationalists or those who are duly proud of their country. In the meantime,
these are the same people who refer to us "merkins". I once made the
mistake of calling it an archipelago (which it is) and got corrected for
that. It can drive one mad, I tell you, lol. Like when I say "Britain", I
mean the whole UK, though in practice when if I'm talking to a Scot, a Welsh
person, or a Northern Irelander I try to use their country if I can avoid
any British or UKGBNI terms, just to avoid offending the person.
I've gone off on a tangent there. Sorry. :)
Larry
Ben Zimmer
Markedness, folks, it's all about markedness:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3CFF8B42...@midway.uchicago.edu
If one is privileged to be a member of a "default" unmarked category,
then a linguistic attempt to mark that category (in this case through
reduplication) may well seem needless. Depending on one's perspective,
"Mandarin Chinese", "Protestant Christian", or even "male actor" could
also be considered pleonastic.
Ben Zimmer
A key test, as RSW's subject line implies, is whether the speaker uses
contrastive stress, e.g., "I/They speak ENGLISH English." See the
corpus of examples collected here:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/linguistics/russell/redup-corpus.html
Clark G. Smith
double-words, or CFRs, if you will), to be the native english of the two or
more persons speaking. If they speak different dialects, then there might
be a problem. ;-)
"Mike Oliver" <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote in message
news:3F0E784C...@math.ucla.edu...
Oliver Cromm
I had the same reaction; these two words sort of just happen to be
homonymous, because in English, there is no other word for many
language than the adjective relating to the country. Actually, "English
English" needn't be a reduplication any more than "Pakistani Urdu" or
"Kenyan Kisuaheli".
--
Oliver Cromm
Fatal exception in module gravitation.dll. Instable state of cosmos.
The universe will be restarted now. Any unsaved data will be lost.
(after an idea from "Boarder Lord" at www.heise.de)
Mike Oliver
You *could* use it analogously to "salad salad", but then it
would mean "you know, just plain *English*", which would mean
different things depending on the speaker. Might even
mean specifically "American English".
If you use the first "English" as meaning "pertaining to England",
then it's not analogous to "salad salad".
Mike Oliver
> I think it depends on the intent of the speaker. Yes, it could mean
> "English as spoken in England" but it could also mean "'real'
> English". It is impossible to tell which is meant without more
> context.
I just wrote almost exactly the same thing in a reply to Larry G;
should have read your post first.
Oliver Cromm
> Depending on
> one's perspective, "Mandarin Chinese", "Protestant Christian", or
> even "male actor" could also be considered pleonastic.
My wife regularly contrasts Christians and Protestants, and when she is
confused, she says PL instead of Protestants.
Some Linguists want to get rid of the misnomer "Chinese (language)".
Larry G
> would mean "you know, just plain *English*", which would mean
> different things depending on the speaker. Might even
> mean specifically "American English".
>
> If you use the first "English" as meaning "pertaining to England",
> then it's not analogous to "salad salad".
I'm still not understanding why not, unless I'm misinterpreting "salad
salad" (now I understand why these reduplications are discouraged <g>). If
"salad salad" is referring to a simple green salad as opposed to something
more exotic in the wider variety of salads like a "caesar salad" for
example, then how does this differ from "English English". Is not a simple,
green "salad salad" a specific type of salad, as "English English" is simply
English? I'm not understanding. The point is too narrow down the meaning
is it not? ???
Larry<-------going on three hours sleep, so please factor this into the
equation. <g>
Larry G
Okay, let me see if I get it:
simple green "salad salad" is analagous to English pertaining to England
"English English"
but not with "real English" whatever that is depending on which side of the
Atlantic you identify with. Right?
Larry
Mike Oliver
> > then it's not analogous to "salad salad".
>
> I'm still not understanding why not, unless I'm misinterpreting "salad
> salad" (now I understand why these reduplications are discouraged <g>). If
> "salad salad" is referring to a simple green salad as opposed to something
> more exotic in the wider variety of salads like a "caesar salad" for
> example, then how does this differ from "English English".
To an American, English from England *is* the exotic sort; "normal"
English is American English. But English English is still English
from England, because the first "English" means "from England",
not "the normal kind".
Mike Oliver
> Okay, let me see if I get it:
> simple green "salad salad" is analagous to English pertaining to England
> "English English"
No, that's precisely what I was saying is *not* analogous.
If an American were to use "English English" to mean "American English",
*then* it would be analogous to "salad salad".
John Smith
>
> A "contrastive focus reduplication" is a name which has been given to the
> doubling of a word or string of words which "restricts the interpretation of
An acquaintance of mine who adores Audrey Hepburn once told me that she
made movies back when movies were movies.
\\P. Schultz
Raymond S. Wise
news:amjtgv4ollalp430a...@4ax.com...
Yes. The examples of contrastive focus reduplication given at
http://www.umanitoba.ca/linguistics/russell/redup-corpus.html
show many examples in which the contrast is not stated explicitly.
Larry G
OK, I understand now. It's amazing what sleep will do for a person. <g> I
was thinking too closely toward the view of the English that theirs is is
standard language, and not toward my own country where there would be a bias
that American is the standard in an American context for the purposes of
reduplication.
Larry
Charles Riggs
wrote:
>"Raymond S. Wise" wrote:
>>
>> A "contrastive focus reduplication" is a name which has been given to the
>> doubling of a word or string of words which "restricts the interpretation of
>> the copied element to a 'real' or prototypical reading."[1] <...>
Kewl.
>An acquaintance of mine who adores Audrey Hepburn once told me that she
>made movies back when movies were movies.
...to coin a phrase.
--
Charles Riggs
For email, take the air out of aircom
and replace with eir
Chuck D
> A "contrastive focus reduplication" is a name which has been given to the
> doubling of a word or string of words which "restricts the interpretation
of
> the copied element to a 'real' or prototypical reading."[1] We've spoken
of
> this phenomenon in these newsgroups. An example is "You make the Jello
salad
> and I'll make the salad salad," where the reduplication "salad salad"
refers
> to a green salad. Another example would be one of the Esperanto terms for
> "ordinary mail" or "snail mail": "poshtposhto," based upon "poshto" and
> contrasting with "retposhto" ( = "E-mail," literally "Web mail" ) which is
> an example of a contrastive focus reduplication which has been turned into
a
> retronym.
I forwarded the primary message in this thread to a friend who shares my
facination with language, and received this reply from him just now:
OK, you smarty! Here's a story for you:
I read your e-mail - really strange, but just the type of information we
word-nerds like. I run out to get in the car because Wendy and I were going
on a history walking tour of the next town. We have to meet the tour group
at the intersection of West Main, and Main. Wendy's explaining where the two
meet near the florist where she works.
As we get to the town, we come to a traffic light. I comment facetiously
"OK, we made it to one of the Mains!"
Her response (OK, class, everyone together): "This is main Main."
Less than 20 minutes after I learn about cfr, I get to use it in context as
I explain to her what she just did.
I usually don't believe in coincidences, but THAT has to qualify.
>>
Professor Redwine
> A "contrastive focus reduplication" is a name which has been given to the
> doubling of a word or string of words which "restricts the interpretation of
> the copied element to a 'real' or prototypical reading."[1] We've spoken of
> this phenomenon in these newsgroups. An example is "You make the Jello salad
> and I'll make the salad salad," where the reduplication "salad salad" refers
> to a green salad. Another example would be one of the Esperanto terms for
> "ordinary mail" or "snail mail": "poshtposhto," based upon "poshto" and
> contrasting with "retposhto" ( = "E-mail," literally "Web mail" ) which is
> an example of a contrastive focus reduplication which has been turned into a
> retronym.
But why 'reduplication'? This is, in itself, a duplication, and not for
contrastive focus, as far as I can make out.
--
Redwine, Berlin
We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with
nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke,
and a presumption that once our eyes watered. --Tom Stoppard
Raymond S. Wise
news:pan.2003.07.13....@privacy.net...
> On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 01:36:49 -0500, Raymond S. Wise wrote:
>
> > A "contrastive focus reduplication" is a name which has been given to
the
> > doubling of a word or string of words which "restricts the
interpretation of
> > the copied element to a 'real' or prototypical reading."[1] We've spoken
of
> > this phenomenon in these newsgroups. An example is "You make the Jello
salad
> > and I'll make the salad salad," where the reduplication "salad salad"
refers
> > to a green salad. Another example would be one of the Esperanto terms
for
> > "ordinary mail" or "snail mail": "poshtposhto," based upon "poshto" and
> > contrasting with "retposhto" ( = "E-mail," literally "Web mail" ) which
is
> > an example of a contrastive focus reduplication which has been turned
into a
> > retronym.
>
> But why 'reduplication'? This is, in itself, a duplication, and not for
> contrastive focus, as far as I can make out.
Why have the verb "duplicate" when you already have the verb "double"? In
that case, as in the case of "duplicate/reduplicate," the new word allows
for distinctions in meaning.
Still, with the vagaries of language change, you'll find instances when an
old word and a novel word have the same meaning. "Double" can be used
intransitively with the meaning "To increase to twice the sum, number,
value, or measure ; grow twice as great" as *The Century Dictionary* (
www.century-dictionary.com ) puts it. In the same dictionary is an
intransive sense of "redouble" which is defined as "To become twice as
much[....]"
By the way, *Merriam-Webster's Collegiate* dates "reduplication" to 1555.
Ayaz Ahmed Khan
> A "contrastive focus reduplication" is a name which has been given to the
> doubling of a word or string of words which "restricts the interpretation of
> the copied element to a 'real' or prototypical reading."[1] We've spoken of
> this phenomenon in these newsgroups. An example is "You make the Jello salad
> and I'll make the salad salad," where the reduplication "salad salad" refers
> to a green salad. Another example would be one of the Esperanto terms for
> "ordinary mail" or "snail mail": "poshtposhto," based upon "poshto" and
> contrasting with "retposhto" ( = "E-mail," literally "Web mail" ) which is
> an example of a contrastive focus reduplication which has been turned into a
> retronym.
>
> Last night on *Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn* I heard another example. A
> guest mentioned "9/11" ("nine-eleven"). Quinn asked him "You don't mean 9/11
> this year, do you?" and the guest replied, "No, 9/11 9/11."
In my mother tongue which is Urdu this doubling of words is common,
but only verbally. Most of the time I utter such reduplicated words---
is this is the right word---sub-consciously, without intending to, as
if from an impulse. But the duplicate word only acts as an
intensifier, and does not imply any different meaning than the
original word does.
--
Ayaz Ahmed Khan
Yours Forever in,
Cyberspace.
Ben Zimmer
>
> In my mother tongue which is Urdu this doubling of words is common,
> but only verbally. Most of the time I utter such reduplicated words---
> is this is the right word---sub-consciously, without intending to, as
> if from an impulse. But the duplicate word only acts as an
> intensifier, and does not imply any different meaning than the
> original word does.
Reduplication in Hindi/Urdu has several uses, including as an
intensifier. See: <http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pehook/redoop.html>.
Many, many other languages have used intensive reduplication for a long,
long time (including English, as you can see). Contrastive focus
reduplication is not particular to English either-- it's been noted, for
instance, that German ""Kaffee Kaffee" and Italian "caffč caffč" are
both used to mean "real coffee" (as opposed to ersatz coffee).
Marion Gevers
> both used to mean "real coffee" (as opposed to ersatz coffee).
Reduplication is very common in the Australian languages. It
seems to be used for intensification, but I have never been
totally sure of this. Sometimes I suspect that it is merely
to produce redundancy for greater clarity.
Let's take an example at random from the Paakantyi language
of western New South Wales. (This is from a dictionary.
I don't pretend to know the language.) The verb "to tie"
can be either muni- or muni-muni-, with no obvious rule as
to which to choose. In the sentence "muni-munithu karlina"
(he is tying up his dog) the inflectional suffix -thu is
attached only to the second muni-. (It seems that all of
the Australian languages, in both of the two main families,
use affixes to indicate all sorts of things: case,
verb conjugation, pronouns, etc. In some of those languages
the prefixes and suffixes pile one on top of another to produce
very long words.) To the best of my limited knowledge, this
is a general rule: only the second member of a reduplicated
pair gets the inflections.
--
Peter Moylan http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au
Newcastle, NSW, Australia