Reduplication as Morphological Doubling



Sharon Inkelas, Berkeley

Cheryl Zoll, MIT





The Correspondence Theory of reduplication (McCarthy & Prince 1995; 
 henceforth BR Correspondence Theory) emerges from the assumption that 
 the preservation of phonological identity between reduplicant and base 
 constitutes the core problem of reduplication, motivated in particular 
 by the unexpected overapplication and underapplication of alternations 
 in reduplicative contexts (Wilbur 1973). However, phonological identity 
 between the two copies in a reduplication construction is just one facet 
 of a wide range of effects that comprise reduplication. This paper shows 
 that the problem of reduplication looks very different when the focus is 
 shifted away from the relatively small number of cases of phonological 
 overapplication and underapplication to the larger class of cases where 
 base and reduplicant diverge phonologically. We present evidence that 
 demonstrates that the driving force in reduplication is identity at the 
 morphosyntactic, not phonological level, and outline a theory of 
 reduplication as morphological doubling that derives the full range of 
 reduplication patterns.