Reduplication


In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.
Reduplication is used in inflections to convey a grammatical function, such as plurality, intensification, etc., and in lexical derivation to create new words. It is often used when a speaker adopts a tone more "expressive" or figurative than ordinary speech and is also often, but not exclusively, iconic in meaning. Reduplication is found in a wide range of languages and language groups, though its level of linguistic productivity varies.
Reduplication is the standard term for this phenomenon in the linguistics literature. Other terms that are occasionally used include cloning, doubling, duplication, repetition, and tautonym when it is used in biological taxonomies, such as Bison bison.
The origin of this usage of tautonym is uncertain, but it has been suggested that it is of relatively recent derivation.

Typological description

Form

Reduplication is often described phonologically in one of two ways: either as reduplicated segments or as reduplicated prosodic units. In addition to phonological description, reduplication often needs to be described morphologically as a reduplication of linguistic constituents. As a result, reduplication is interesting theoretically as it involves the interface between phonology and morphology.
The base is the word that is to be copied. The reduplicated element is called the reduplicant, often abbreviated as RED or sometimes just R.
In reduplication, the reduplicant is most often repeated only once. However, in some languages, reduplication can occur more than once, resulting in a tripled form, and not a duple as in most reduplication. Triplication is the term for this phenomenon of copying two times. Pingelapese has both forms:
Basic verbReduplicationTriplication
' 'to sing'' 'singing'' 'still singing'
' 'to sleep'' 'sleeping'' 'still sleeping'

Triplication occurs in other languages, e.g. Ewe, Shipibo, Twi, Mokilese, Min Nan, Stau.
Sometimes gemination is considered to be a form of reduplication. The term dupleme has been used to refer to different types of reduplication that have the same meaning.

Full and partial reduplication

Full reduplication involves a reduplication of the entire word. For example, Kham derives reciprocal forms from reflexive forms by total reduplication:
Another example is from Musqueam Halkomelem "dispositional" aspect formation:
Partial reduplication involves a reduplication of only part of the word. For example, Marshallese forms words meaning 'to wear X' by reduplicating the last consonant-vowel-consonant sequence of a base, i.e. base+CVC:
Many languages often use both full and partial reduplication, as in the Motu example below:
Base verbFull reduplicationPartial reduplication
mahuta 'to sleep'mahutamahuta 'to sleep constantly'mamahuta 'to sleep '

Reduplicant position

Reduplication may be initial, final, or internal, e.g.
Initial reduplication in Agta ':
Final reduplication in Dakota ':
Internal reduplication in Samoan :
Internal reduplication is much less common than the initial and final types.

Copying direction

A reduplicant can copy from either the left edge of a word or from the right edge. There is a tendency for prefixing reduplicants to copy left-to-right and for suffixing reduplicants to copy right-to-left:
Initial L → R copying in Oykangand Kunjen :
Final R → L copying in Sirionó:
Copying from the other direction is possible although less common:
Initial R → L copying in Tillamook:
Final L → R copying in Chukchi:
Internal reduplication can also involve copying the beginning or end of the base. In Quileute, the first consonant of the base is copied and inserted after the first vowel of the base.
Internal L → R copying in Quileute:
In Temiar, the last consonant of the root is copied and inserted before the medial consonant of the root.
Internal R → L copying in Temiar :
A rare type of reduplication is found in Semai. "Expressive minor reduplication" is formed with an initial reduplicant that copies the first and last segment of the base:

Reduplication and other morphological processes

All of the examples above consist of only reduplication. However, reduplication often occurs with other phonological and morphological process, such as deletion, affixation of non-reduplicating material, etc.
For instance, in Tz'utujil a new '-ish' adjective form is derived from other words by suffixing the reduplicated first consonant of the base followed by the segment. This can be written succinctly as . Below are some examples:
Somali has a similar suffix that is used in forming the plural of some nouns: -aC :
This combination of reduplication and affixation is commonly referred to as fixed-segment reduplication.
In Tohono O'odham initial reduplication also involves gemination of the first consonant in the distributive plural and in repetitive verbs:
Sometimes gemination can be analyzed as a type of reduplication.

Phonological processes, environment, and reduplicant-base relations

In the Malayo-Polynesian family, reduplication is used to form plurals :
In pre-1972 Indonesian and Malay orthography, 2 was shorthand for the reduplication that forms plurals: orang "person", orang-orang or orang2 "people". This orthography has resurfaced widely in text messaging and other forms of electronic communication.
The Nama language uses reduplication to increase the force of a verb: go, "look;", go-go "examine with attention".
Chinese also uses reduplication: 人 rén for "person", 人人 rénrén for "everybody". Japanese does it too: 時 toki "time", tokidoki 時々 "sometimes, from time to time". Both languages can use a special written iteration mark 々 to indicate reduplication, although in Chinese the iteration mark is no longer used in standard writing and is often found only in calligraphy.
Indo-European languages formerly used reduplication to form a number of verb forms, especially in the preterite or perfect. In the older Indo-European languages, many such verbs survive:
Those forms do not survive in Modern English but existed in its parent Germanic languages. Many verbs in the Indo-European languages exhibit reduplication in the present stem, rather than the perfect stem, often with a different vowel from that used for the perfect: Latin gigno, genui and Greek τίθημι, ἔθηκα, τέθηκα. Other Indo-European verbs used reduplication as a derivational process: compare Latin sto and sisto. All of those Indo-European inherited reduplicating forms are subject to reduction by other phonological laws.
Reduplication can be used to refer to the most prototypical instance of a word's meaning. In such a case, it is called contrastive focus reduplication. Finnish colloquial speech uses the process; nouns can be reduplicated to indicate genuinity, completeness, originality and being uncomplicated, as opposed to being fake, incomplete, complicated or fussy. It can be thought as compound word formation. For example, Söin jäätelöä ja karkkia, sekä tietysti ruokaruokaa. "I ate ice cream and candy, and of course food-food". Here, "food-food" is contrasted to "junk-food". One may say, "En ollut eilen koulussa, koska olin kipeä. Siis kipeäkipeä" ; that means that one was actually suffering from an illness instead of making up excuses, as usual.
Words can be reduplicated with their case morphemes, as in lomalla lomalla, where the adessive morpheme appears twice. While reduplication is intelligible to most Finns, its usage is confined mostly to subgroups of young women and children. However, most young women and children do not use reduplication. Reduplication has a somewhat childish connotation and may be perceived as annoying.
In Swiss German, the verbs gah or goh "go", cho "come", la or lo "let" and aafa or aafo "begin" reduplicate when they are combined with other verbs.
In some Salishan languages, reduplication can mark both diminution and plurality, with one process being applied to each end of the word, as in the following example from Shuswap. Note that the transcription is not comparable to the IPA, but the reduplication of both initial and final portions of the root is clear: ṣōk!Emē'’n 'knife' reduplicated as ṣuk!ṣuk!Emen'’me’n 'plural small knives'. Reduplication has been found to be a major part of Salish languages.

Reduplicative babbling in child language acquisition

At 25–50 weeks after birth, typically developing infants go through a stage of reduplicated or canonical babbling. Canonical babbling is characterized by repetition of identical or nearly identical consonant-vowel combinations, such as nanana or idididi. It appears as a progression of language development as infants experiment with their vocal apparatus and hone in on the sounds used in their native language. Canonical/reduplicated babbling also appears at a time when general rhythmic behavior, such as rhythmic hand movements and rhythmic kicking, appear. Canonical babbling is distinguished from earlier syllabic and vocal play, which has less structure.

Examples

Indo-European

Proto-Indo-European

The Proto-Indo-European language used partial reduplication of a consonant and e in many stative aspect verb forms. The perfect or preterite tense of some Ancient Greek, Gothic, Latin, Sanskrit, and Old Norse verbs preserve this reduplication:
Proto-Indo-European also used reduplication for the imperfective aspect. Ancient Greek preserves this reduplication in the present tense of some verbs. Usually, but not always, this is reduplication of a consonant and i, and contrasts with e-reduplication in the perfect:
Reduplication in nouns was rare, the best example being Proto-Indo-European 'wheel', which doubled *kʷel-o-, itself likely a deverbative of *kʷelh₁- 'to turn'.

English

English has several types of reduplication, ranging from informal expressive vocabulary to grammatically meaningful forms. See also the alliteration section of the irreversible binomial article for cases like flip-flop, dribs and drabs, etc.
Of the above types, only shm-reduplication is productive, meaning that examples of the first three are fixed forms and new forms are not easily accepted.
The double copula is in some cases a type of reduplication, which may be regarded as non-standard or incorrect.
More can be learned about English reduplication in,, and.

Latin

In addition to having some reduplicated presents and perfects, Latin uses reduplication for some indefinite relative pronouns, such as quisque "whoever" and ubiubi "wherever".

Dutch

While not common in Dutch, reduplication does exist. Most, but not all, taaitaai ) reduplications in Dutch are loanwords or imitative. Another example is a former safe sex campaign slogan in Flanders: Eerst bla-bla, dan boem-boem. In Dutch the verb "gaan" can be used as an auxiliary verb, which can lead to a triplication: we gaan gaan gaan. The use of gaan as an auxiliary verb with itself is considered incorrect, but is commonly used in Flanders. Numerous examples of reduplication in Dutch are discussed by Daniëls.

Afrikaans

makes use of reduplication to emphasize the meaning of the word repeated and to denote a plural or event happening in more than one place. For example, krap means "to scratch one's self," while krap-krap-krap means "to scratch one's self vigorously", whereas "dit het plek-plek gereën", means "it rained here and there". Reduplication in Afrikaans has been described extensively in the literature – see for example, and. Further examples of this include: "koes" being reduplicated in the sentence "Piet hardloop koes-koes weg" ; "sukkel" becoming "sukkel-sukkel" ; and "kierang" becoming "kierang-kierang" to indicate being cheated on repeatedly.

Romance languages

In Italian reduplication was used both to create new words or word associations and to intensify the meaning.
Common in Lingua Franca, particularly but not exclusively for onomatopoeic action descriptions:
"Spagnoli venir...boum boum...andar; Inglis venir...boum boum bezef...andar; Francés venir...tru tru tru...chapar."
Common uses for reduplication in French are the creation of hypocoristics for names, whereby Louise becomes Loulou, and Zinedine Zidane becomes Zizou; and in many nursery words, like dada 'horsie', tati 'auntie', or tonton 'unkie'.
In Romanian and Catalan, reduplication is not uncommon and it has been used for both the creation of new words and expressions, for example,
In colloquial Mexican Spanish it is common to use reduplicated adverbs such as luego luego meaning "immediately", or casi casi which intensifies the meaning of 'almost'.

Slavic languages

The reduplication in the Russian language serves for various kinds of intensifying of the meaning and exists in several forms: a hyphenated or repeated word, and forms similar to shm-reduplication.

Celtic languages

Reduplication is a common feature of Irish and includes the examples rírá, ruaille buaille both meaning 'commotion' and fite fuaite meaning 'intertwined'.

Persian

Reduplication is a very common practice in Persian, to the extent that there are jokes about it. Mainly due to the mixed nature of the Persian language, most of the reduplication comes in the form of a phrase consisting of a Persian word -va- and an Arabic word, like "Taghdir-Maghdir". Reduplication is particularly common in the city of Shiraz in southwestern Iran. One can further categorize the reduplicative words into "True" and "Quasi" ones. In true reduplicative words, both words are actually real words and have meaning in the language in which it is used. In quasi-reduplicative words, at least one of the words does not have a meaning. Some examples of true reduplicative words in Persian are: "Xert-o-Pert" ; "Čert-o-Pert" ; "Čarand-Parand" ; "Āb-o-Tāb". Among the quasi-reduplicative words are "Zan-man" ; "Da'vā-Ma'vā" ; "Talā-malā" ; and "Raxt-o-Paxt". Reduplication in Persian is sometimes a mockery of words with non-Persian origins.

South Asian languages

Typically all Indo-Aryan languages, like Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati and Bengali use partial or echoic reduplication in some form or the other. It is usually used to sound casual, or in a suggestive manner. It is often used to mean etcetera. For example, in Hindi, chai-shai. Quite common in casual conversations are a few more examples like shopping-wopping, khana-wana.
Reduplication is also used in Dravidian languages like Telugu for the same purpose.
South Asian languages are also rich in other forms of reduplication: morphological, lexical, and phrasal.
Reduplication also occurs in the 3th gaṇa of the Sanskrit language: bibheti "he fears", bibharti "he bears", juhoti "he offers", dadāti, "he gives". Even though the general idea is to reduplicate the verb root as a prefix, several sandhi rules change the final outcome.

Nepali

A number of Nepali nouns are formed by reduplication. As in other languages, the meaning is not that of a true plural, but collectives that refer to a set of the same or related objects, often in a particular situation.
For example, "rangi changi" describes an object that is extremely or vividly colorful, like a crazy mix of colors and/or patterns, perhaps dizzying to the eye. The phrase "hina mina" means "scattered," like a large collection of objects spilled in all different directions. The basic Nepali word for food, "khana" becomes "khana sana" to refer to the broad generality of anything served at a meal. Likewise, "chiya" or tea becomes "chiya siya": tea and snacks.

Turkish

In Turkish, there are three kinds of reduplication.
  1. Emphatic Reduplication: A word can be reduplicated partially, such that an emphatic stem is created to be attached to the adjective. This is done by taking the first syllable of the adjective, dropping the syllable-final phoneme, and adding one of four interpolated consonants. For example, kırmızı becomes kıpkırmızı ; mavi becomes masmavi ; yeşil becomes yemyeşil, and temiz becomes tertemiz. However, the consonant added to the emphatic stem is unpredictable grammatically-speaking, however phonological studies, such as Wedel do shed new light on the subject.
  2. Echo Reduplication: A word can be reduplicated while replacing the initial consonants with m. The effect is that the meaning of the original word is broadened. For example, tabak means "plate", and tabak mabak then means "plates, dishes and such". This can be applied not only to nouns but to all kinds of words, as in yeşil meşil meaning "green, greenish, whatever". Although not used in formal written Turkish, it is a completely standard and fully accepted construction.
  3. Doubling: A word can be reduplicated totally, giving a related but different meaning or used for emphasizing. For example, zaman zaman meaning "occasionally"; uzun uzun meaning "very long or many things long". This type is used also in formal Turkish, especially in literature.

    Armenian

In Western Armenian, reduplication follows the same classification as in Turkish.

Uralic

Finnish

As described earlier, contrastive lexical reduplication is used in colloquial Finnish speech. Another type of reduplication occurs in Standard Finnish; reduplication as an intensifier. Common examples of this include suurensuuri literally "big of big", pienenpieni literally "small of small", hienonhieno. The last example, literally "fine of fine," roughly means "very fine". Other adjectives may sometimes be duplicated as well, where a superlative is too strong an expression, somewhat similarly to Slavic languages. This construction can be ambiguous because of its use of a genitive noun followed by a nominative noun, which is not unique to reduplication. For instance the reduplicated form suurensuuri jalka sounds the same as suuren suuri jalka.

Hungarian

Reduplication is usually rhyming. It can add emphasis: 'pici' -> ici-pici and it can modify meaning: 'néha-néha', 'erre-arra', 'ezt-azt', Reduplication often evokes a sense of playfulness and it's quite common when talking to small children.

Bantu

Reduplication is a common phenomenon in Bantu languages and is usually used to form a frequentive verb or for emphasis.
Popular names that have reduplication include
frequently reduplicate consonants, though often not the vowels that appear next to the consonants in some verb form. This can take the shape of reduplicating the antepenultimate consonant, the last of two consonants, or the last two consonants.

Hebrew

In Hebrew, reduplication is used in nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs for various reasons:
In Amharic, verb roots can be reduplicated three different ways. These can result in verbs, nouns, or adjectives.
From the root sbr 'break', antepenultimate reduplication produces täsäbabbärä 'it was shattered' and biconsonantal reduplication produces täsbäräbbärä 'it was shattered repeatedly' and səbərbari 'a shard, a shattered piece'.
From the root kHb 'pile stones into a wall', since the second radical is not fully specified, what some call "hollow", the antepenultimate reduplication process reduplicates the k inserting the vowel a along with the consonant as a place holder for the hollow consonant, which is by some criteria antepenultimate, and produces akakabä 'pile stones repeatedly'.

Sino-Tibetan

Burmese

In Burmese, reduplication is used in verbs and adjectives to form adverbs. Many Burmese words, especially adjectives such as လှပ, which consist of two syllables, when reduplicated become adverbs. This is also true of many Burmese verbs, which become adverbs when reduplicated.
Some nouns are also reduplicated to indicate plurality. For instance,, means "country," but when reduplicated to, it means "many countries". Another example is, which means "kinds," but the reduplicated form means "multiple kinds."
A few measure words can also be reduplicated to indicate "one or the other":
Adjective reduplication is common in Standard Chinese, typically denoting emphasis, less acute degree of the quality described, or an attempt at more indirect speech: xiǎoxiǎo de 小小的, chòuchòu de 臭臭的. Reduplication can also reflect a "cute", juvenile or informal register; in this respect, it can be compared to the English diminutive ending "-y" or "-ie"
In the case of adjectives composed of two characters, generally each of the two characters is reduplicated separately: piàoliang 漂亮 reduplicates as piàopiàoliangliang 漂漂亮亮.
Verb reduplication is also common in Standard Chinese, conveying the meaning of informal and temporary character of the action. It is often used in imperative expressions, in which it lessens the degree of imperativity: zuòzuò 坐坐, děngděng 等等. Compound verbs are reduplicated as a whole word: xiūxixiūxi 休息休息. This can be analyzed as an instance of omission of "一" or "一下".
Noun reduplication, though nearly absent in Standard Chinese, is found in Cantonese and southwestern dialects of Mandarin. For instance, in Sichuan Mandarin, bāobāo 包包 is used whereas Beijing use bāor 包儿. One notable exception is the colloquial use of bāobāo 包包 by non-Sichuanese speakers to denote a perceived fancy, attractive, or "cute" purse. However, there are few nouns that can be reduplicated in Standard Chinese, and reduplication denotes generalisation and uniformity: rén 人 and rénrén 人人, jiājiāhùhù 家家户户 – in the latter jiā and hù additionally duplicate the meaning of household, which is a common way of creating compound words in Chinese.

Japanese

A small number of native Japanese nouns have collective forms produced by reduplication, such as 人々 hitobito "people" – these are written with the iteration mark "々" to indicate duplication. This formation is not productive and is limited to a small set of nouns. Similarly to Standard Chinese, the meaning is not that of a true plural, but collectives that refer to a large, given set of the same object; for example, the formal English equivalent of 人々 would be "people", rather than "persons".
Japanese also contains a large number of mimetic words formed by reduplication of a syllable. These words include not only onomatopoeia, but also words intended to invoke non-auditory senses or psychological states, such as きらきら kirakira. By one count, approximately 43% of Japanese mimetic words are formed by full reduplication, and many others are formed by partial reduplication, as in がささ〜 ga-sa-sa- – compare English "a-ha-ha-ha".

Austroasiatic

Vietnamese

Words called từ láy are found abundantly in Vietnamese. They are formed by repeating a part of a word to form new words, altering the meaning of the original word. Its effect is to sometimes either increase or decrease the intensity of the adjective, or to generalize a word's meaning. It is often used as a literary device in poetry and other compositions but is also prevalent in everyday speech. In some cases, the word's tone may be reduplicated in addition to an initial or final sound.
Examples of reduplication increasing intensity:
Examples of reduplication decreasing intensity:
Examples of generalization:
Examples of blunt sounds or physical conditions:
Examples of emphasis without a change in meaning:
In colloquial speech, almost any arbitrary word can be reduplicated to express a dismissive attitude:
As seen above, disyllabic words undergo a complex transformation: .

Khmer

uses reduplication for several purposes, including emphasis and pluralization. The Khmer script includes a reduplication sign, ៗ, indicating that the word or phrase preceding it is to be pronounced twice. Reduplication in Khmer, like many Mon–Khmer languages, can express complex thoughts. Khmer also uses a form of reduplication known as "synonym compounding", in which two phonologically distinct words with similar or identical meanings are combined, either to form the same term or to form a new term altogether.

Austronesian

The wide use of reduplication is certainly one of the most prominent grammatical features of Austronesian languages.

Malay (Indonesian and Malaysian)

In the Malay language, reduplication is a very productive process. It is used for expression of various grammatical functions and it is part in a number of complex morphological models. Simple reduplication of nouns and pronouns can express at least three meanings:
  1. Diversity or non-exhaustive plurality:
  2. #Burung-burung itu juga diekspor ke luar negeri = "All those birds are also exported out of the country".
  3. Conceptual similarity:
  4. #langit-langit = "ceiling; palate; etc."
  5. #jari-jari = "spoke; bar; radius; etc."
  6. Pragmatic accentuation:
  7. #Saya bukan anak-anak lagi! "I am not a child anymore!"
Reduplication of an adjective can express different things:
  • Adverbialisation: Jangan bicara keras-keras! = "Don't speak loudly!"
  • Plurality of the corresponding noun: Rumah di sini besar-besar = "The houses here are big".
Reduplication of a verb can express various things:
  • Simple reduplication:
  • *Pragmatic accentuation: Kenapa orang tidak datang-datang? = "Why aren't people coming?"
  • Reduplication with me- prefixation, depending on the position of the prefix me-:
  • *Repetition or continuation of the action: Orang itu memukul-mukul anaknya: "That man continuously beat his child";
  • *Reciprocity: Kedua orang itu pukul-memukul = "Those two men would beat each other".
Notice that in the first case, the nasalisation of the initial consonant is repeated, while in the second case, it only applies in the repeated word.

Māori

The Māori language uses reduplication in a number of ways.
Reduplication can convey a simple plural meaning, for instance wahine "woman", waahine "women", tangata "person", taangata "people". Biggs calls this "infixed reduplication". It occurs in a small subset of "people" words in most Polynesian languages.
Reduplication can convey emphasis or repetition, for example mate "die", matemate "die in numbers"; and de-emphasis, for example wera "hot" and werawera "warm".
Reduplication can also extend the meaning of a word; for instance paki "pat" becomes papaki "slap or clap once" and pakipaki "applaud"; kimo "blink" becomes kikimo "close eyes firmly"

Mortlockese

The Mortlockese language is a Micronesian language spoken primarily on the Mortlock Islands. In the Mortlockese language, reduplication is used to show a habitual or imperfective aspect. For example, /jææjæ/ means "to use something" while the word /jæjjææjæ/ means "to use something habitually or repeatedly". Reduplication is also used in the Mortlockese Language to show extremity or extreme measures. One example of this can be seen in /ŋiimw alɛɛtɛj/ which means "hate him, her, or it". To mean "really hate him, her, or it," the phrase changes to /ŋii~mw al~mw alɛɛtɛj/.

Pingelapese

is a Micronesian language spoken on the Pingelap atoll and on two of the eastern Caroline Islands, called the high island of Pohnpei. Pingelapese utilizes both duplication and triplication of a verb or part of a verb to express that something is happening for certain duration of time. No reduplication means that something happens. A reduplicated verb means that something IS happening, and a triplication means that something is STILL happening. For example, saeng means 'to cry' in Pingelapese. When reduplicated and triplicated, the duration of this verb is changed:
  • saeng – cries
  • saeng-saeng – is crying
  • saeng-saeng-saeng – is still crying
Few languages employ triplication in their language. In Micronesia, Pingelapese is one of only two languages that uses triplication, the other being Mokilese. Reduplication and triplication are not to be confused with tense however. In order to make a phrase past, present, or future tense, a temporal phrase must be used.

Rapa

is the French Polynesian language of the island of Rapa Iti. In terms of reduplication, the indigenous language known as Old Rapa uses reduplication consistent to other Polynesian languages. Reduplication of Old Rapa occurs in four ways: full, rightward, leftward, and medial. Full and rightward are generally more frequently used as opposed to the leftward and medial. Leftward and medial only occur as CV reduplication and partial leftward and medial usually denote emphasis.
Example of Reduplication Forms:
Base FormReduplicated Form
Full Reduplicationkini 'pinch'
kati 'bite'		kinikini 'pinch skin'
katikati 'nibble'
Rightward Reduplicationmāringi 'pour'
taka'uri 'go backward'
pātī 'bounce'
ngaru 'wave'		māringiringi 'pour continuously'
taka'uri'uri 'roll back and forth'
pātītī 'splash '
ngaruru 'sea sick'
Leftward Reduplicationkomo 'sleep'
kume 'drag'		kokomo 'deep sleep'
kukume 'large, flat leaf seaweed'
Medial Reduplicationmaitaki 'good; well'maitataki 'excellent; very well'

For the Rapa Language the implementation of reduplication has specific implications. The most evident of these are known as iterative, intensification, specification, diminutive, metaphorical, nominalizing, and adjectival.
Iterative:
  • naku 'come, go' → nakunaku 'pass by frequently'
  • ipuni 'hide' → ipunipuni 'hide and seek'
Intensification:
  • mare 'cough' → maremare 'cough forcefully'
  • roa 'much' → roroa 'very much'
  • maki 'sick'makimaki 'really sick'
Specification:
  • kini 'to pinch' → kinikini 'pinch skin'
Diminutive:
  • paki 'slap, strike'pakipaki 'clap'
  • kati 'bite' → katikati 'nibble'
Metaphorical :
  • kapa 'mime with hands' → kapakapa 'flap wings '
  • mākuru 'detach oneself' → mākurukuru 'shed or molt'
  • taŋi 'Yell' → taŋitaŋi 'chirp '
Nominalizing:
  • para 'Finished'parapara 'leftovers'
  • Panga'a 'divide' → panaga'anga'a 'a break, a divide'
Adjectival:
  • repo 'dirt, earth' → reporepo 'dirty'
  • pake 'sun' → pakepake 'shining, bright'

    Tagalog

are characterized as having the most productive use of reduplication, especially in Tagalog. Reduplication in Tagalog is complex. It can be roughly divided into six types:
  1. Monosyllabic; e.g. olol
  2. Reduplication of the final syllable; e.g. himaymay, from himay
  3. Reduplication of the final syllable of a disyllabic word, where the added syllable is created from the first consonant of the first syllable and the last consonant of the second syllable; e.g. kaliskis, from kalis
  4. Reduplication of the initial syllable of the root; e.g. susulat, from sulat
  5. Full reduplication; e.g. araw-araw, from araw
  6. Combined partial and full reduplication; e.g. babalibaligtad, from baligtad
They can further be divided into "non-significant" and "significant" reduplication. 1, 2, and 3 are always non-significant; while 5 and 6 are always significant. 4 can be non-significant when used for nouns.
Full or partial reduplication among nouns and pronouns can indicate emphasis, intensity, plurality, or causation; as well as a diminutive, superlative, iterative, restrictive, or distributive force.
Adjectives and adverbs employ morphological reduplication for many different reasons such as plurality agreement when the adjective modifies a plural noun, intensification of the adjective or adverb, and sometimes because the prefix forces the adjective to have a reduplicated stem".
Agreement
  • nagluto actor trigger-cook "cooked"
  • nagluluto actor trigger-reduplication-cook "cook" or "is/was cooking"
  • magluluto inf/actor trigger-rdplc-cook "will cook"
For Ergative verbs reduplication of part the infix and the stem occur:
  • lutuin cook-inf/object trigger-cook "to cook"
  • niluto object trigger infix-cook "cooked"
  • niluluto object trigger infix-reduplication-cook "cook"/"is/was cooking"
  • lulutuin rdp-cook-object trigger "will cook".
The complete superlative prefix pagka- demands reduplication of the first syllable of the adjective's stem:
  • "Ang pagkagagandang puno" "The most beautiful tree "

    Tetum

In Tetum, reduplication is used to turn adjectives into superlatives.

Wuvulu-Aua

Reduplication is not a productive noun derivation process in Wuvulu-Aua as it is in other Austronesian languages. Some nouns exhibit reduplication, though they are considered to be fossilized.
Verb roots can undergo whole or partial reduplication to mark aspect. Actions that are continuous are indicated by a reduplicated initial syllable. A whole reduplication can also be used to indicate imperfective aspect.
  • "roni" "to hurry"
  • "roroni" "hurrying"
  • "rawani" "good"
  • "rarawani" "good"
  • "ware" "talk"
  • "wareware" "talked"
The onomatopoeia in Wuvulu language also uses reduplication to describe the sound. These onomatopoeic words can be used as alienable nouns.
  • "baʔa" or "baʔabaʔa" is a word for the sound of knocking.

    Australian Aboriginal languages

Reduplication is common in many Australian place names due to their Aboriginal origins. Some examples include Turramurra, Parramatta, Woolloomooloo. In the language of the Wiradjuri people of southeastern Australia, plurals are formed by doubling a word, hence 'Wagga' meaning crow becomes Wagga Wagga meaning 'place of many crows'. This occurs in other place names deriving from the Wiradjuri language including Gumly Gumly, Grong Grong and Book Book.