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Great Unsolved Mysteries of Lingustic Terminology #416
Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2023 5:14 am
by alice
Why is it called "reduplication", which implies three or four of something, and not just "duplication", which implies two, when the vast majority of instances of it involve something being (more or less) doubled? We must be told!
Re: Great Unsolved Mysteries of Lingustic Terminology #416
Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2023 6:42 am
by WeepingElf
Because language isn't logical
Re: Great Unsolved Mysteries of Lingustic Terminology #416
Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2023 12:45 pm
by Zju
And here was I thinking that the mistery was "why isn't it called rereduplication?". Maybe it was subjected to haplogy.
Re: Great Unsolved Mysteries of Lingustic Terminology #416
Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2023 6:15 pm
by Richard W
Possibly a Gallicism. French has several words where the prefix has lost it's meaning, such as réunion 'union'.
Re: Great Unsolved Mysteries of Lingustic Terminology #416
Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2023 7:17 pm
by Man in Space
Richard W wrote: ↑Sat Nov 04, 2023 6:15 pm
Possibly a Gallicism. French has several words where the prefix has lost it's meaning, such as
réunion 'union'.
Prefixes have had weird semantic stuff going on even in Latin.
con- has a basal meaning of ‘with, together’, right? And then the intensifier meaning was a later bleaching?
Re: Great Unsolved Mysteries of Lingustic Terminology #416
Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2023 8:49 pm
by Travis B.
Zju wrote: ↑Sat Nov 04, 2023 12:45 pm
haplogy
Haplogy is one of my favorite linguistic terms.