Exegesis of reduplication help text

[Kari Valkama]

Hi, 

I am trying to do reduplication in Flex. 

The first step is creating the lexical entry, by entering either  

--[…]  

   OR 

Reduplication 

In the New Entry dialogue box. 

My problem is that I do not understand how to choose between those two choices. That is, I do not understand the instructions below (emphasis mine): 

Create the lexical entry for the reduplication morpheme, entering the following in the New Entry dialog box:

In the Lexeme Form box, enter --[…].

That is, enter two hyphens (the first indicates a suffix, and the second hyphen in this example is an instance of “constant segmental material,” part of the orthography itself), left square bracket, three periods, and a right square bracket. The position of the second hyphen indicates that constant segmental material precedes the reduplicated material.

Alternatively, if you will have multiple morphemes that fully duplicate the stem they attach to, enter the word Reduplication (or similar) in the Lexeme Form box, indicate that the lexeme form is an abstract form, and then enter -[…] as an allomorph. 

According to the instructions: 

"Alternatively, if you will have multiple morphemes that fully duplicate the stem they attach to, enter the word Reduplication (or similar) in the Lexeme Form box"

What does it mean "to have multiple morphemes that fully duplicate the stem"? Since in Indonesian reduplication is used for plural, all the nouns can be reduplicated, so is that the case for having multiple morphemes that fully duplicate the stem? E.g. mobil-mobil, rumah-rumah, orang-orang, meja-maja … 

That seems to be what the help text says, but that does not make sense. And if that is the case, it would have been good to mention it in the help text, e.g. "Alternatively, if you will have multiple morphemes that fully …, as is the case with the Indonesian plural formation …” But as I said that does not make sense to me. 

Is it perhaps so, that if reduplication is used for more functions than plural, then one should enter Reduplication in the New Entry dialogue box? In that case it would be helpful if the help text says for example: "Alternatively, if full stem reduplication is used for more than one function in the language, enter the word Reduplication …” 

But it might mean something else.  

When should one use the latter choice? 

Yours, 

Kari 

[Kevin Warfel]

Hi Kari,

 

1) Regarding the choice of the two options presented in the Helps, from my experience, it depends on what you want to see when you interlinearize. If you are happy to see “-[…]” then use that, but if something else would be more helpful then put the more helpful thing as your Lexeme Form. If you do the latter, the reason you have to mark it as an abstract form is so that FLEx doesn’t try to match what is in the Lexeme Form field to vernacular text. (For example, if you put “reduplication” there, FLEx will be looking for that string of letters in your language, and won’t ever find it if you don’t tick the Is Abstract Form box and use the Allomorphs field to tell FLEx what it should look for.) In my experience, the -[…] has been fine as Lexeme Form because my gloss, which also shows up in the interlinear, provides the clarification of meaning that I desire.

 

That said, the Helps text you quote seems to imply that having multiple morphemes of the form “-[…]” is problematic. I do not know if this is true or not. I would expect that having homographs of this type would be just as unproblematic as having homographs of any other type, but maybe I’m wrong. Someone else can perhaps speak to that.

 

2) Note that “--[…]” is different than “-[…]”. The first needs to be used if your language actually uses a hyphen (“constant segmental material”) in the orthography (e.g., mobil-mobil); the latter applies if the morpheme is reduplicated without any intervening hyphen (e.g., mobilmobil).

 

3) Regarding the phrase “Alternatively, if you will have multiple morphemes that fully duplicate the stem they attach to”, this does not mean “multiple stems that the morpheme attaches to,” which is what you describe with the example of plural nouns in Indonesian. Rather it means, “if there are multiple reduplicative morphemes” (e.g., one that pluralizes a noun, plus one that intensifies an adverb).

 

4) Neither the “Is Abstract Form” checkbox nor that Allomorph field is accessible in the New Entry dialog. You have to do these things after having created the entry.

 

I hope that is helpful. If I left anything unanswered, please write again.

 

Blessings,

 

 

Kevin Warfel

Associate Dictionary and Lexicography Services Coordinator

a.k.a. Dictionary Development Coordinator

SIL International

 

Current technology makes it possible to provide those translating into just about any language with both a dictionary and a thesaurus in the target language, the standard tools of the trade for professional translators, so why are mother-tongue translators in minority languages still expected to do their work without these tools?  Ask me about Rapid Word Collection after reading about it at rapidwords.net.

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[Kari Valkama]

Hi Kevin, 

Thanks for you replies. They were very helpful. 

You said:

3) Regarding …

 “if there are multiple reduplicative morphemes” (e.g., one that pluralizes a noun, plus one that 

intensifies an adverb).

I take that to mean the same as what I said: 

Is it perhaps so, that if reduplication is used for more functions than plural, then one should enter Reduplication in the New Entry dialogue box?

That is helpful. I am going to use Reduplication. 

I still would like to see the help text changed, for example: "Alternatively, if full stem reduplication is used for more than one function in the language, enter the word Reduplication …” 

You said: 

4) Neither the “Is Abstract Form” checkbox nor that Allomorph field is accessible in the New Entry dialog. You have to do these things after having created the entry.

That is helpful information. 

Here again, I would still like to see the help text or the program changed. It is confusing that one has to jump to another place. 

Yours, 

Kari 

[Kevin Warfel]

Hi Kari,

 

Yes, you interpreted my #3 correctly. It means the same as the alternative interpretation you had suggested.

 

I will let those responsible for the content of the Helps respond to your comments about the wording.

 

Blessings,

Kevin

 

From: flex...@googlegroups.com [mailto:flex...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kari Valkama

Sent: Monday, March 19, 2018 8:28 AM
To: Flex List <flex...@googlegroups.com>

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