Cognitive iconic grounding of reduplication in language

Fischer, Olga

doi:10.1075/ill.10.04fis

In:Semblance and Signification
Edited by Pascal Michelucci, Olga Fischer and Christina Ljungberg
[Iconicity in Language and Literature 10] 2011
► pp. 55–82

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Cognitive iconic grounding of reduplication in language

Olga Fischer | University of Amsterdam | Vienna

Published online: 23 November 2011

https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.10.04fis

My aim in this paper will be to find out to what extent opaque reduplications could also be said to be (or to have been) motivated (i.e. forming iconic signs), with the further aim of exploring the possibility of a common source for all reduplicated forms. I will show by referring to the way repetition is used in signed languages, by looking at the various functions the prefix ge- has in Germanic languages, which resembles reduplication in terms of its semantics, and by taking common pathways of semantic change into consideration, that such a common source may be said to exist.

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