Unifying Yoruba reduplication constructions and their semantic relatives

Abstract

Employing the morphosemantic identity approach of Inkelas and Zoll (2005) and Inkelas (2008), this paper presents data from Yoruba showing that morphological reduplication is compounding, and that this compound structure is primarily governed by semantics, which may require similarity, near-similarity or dissimilarity of compound members. On this view, several cases of reduplication patterns that have been treated as separate and unrelated in Yoruba can be seen as a unitary phenomenon. The analysis of these patterns is shown to naturally extend to the analysis of a special class of reduplicated homonym-synonyms, an extremely common pattern seen in poetic word play. In spite of the general success of the morphological approach, some patterns still require a prosodic rather than a morphological analysis. These patterns counter-exemplify the theory's strong claim that partial and total reduplication are morphologically constrained. They show that morphologically induced reduplication must be distinguished from prosodically induced reduplication (Pulleyblank 2009). By keeping these two entities distinct, reduplication can target either or both simultaneously. Finally, specifying the context of reduplication requires direct reference to phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, and thus demonstrates the multidimensionality of reduplication.