Doubled up all over again: Borrowing, sound change and reduplication in Iwaidja

Nicholas Evans*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    12 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This article examines the interactions between reduplication, sound change, and borrowing, as played out in the Iwaidja language of Cobourg Peninsula, Arnhem Land, in Northern Australia, a non-Pama-Nyungan language of the Iwaidjan family. While Iwaidja traditionally makes use of (various types of) right-reduplication, contact with two other left-reduplicating languages-one Australian (Bininj Gun-wok) and one Austronesian (Makassarese)-has led to the introduction of several (non-productive) left-reduplicating patterns. At the same time as these new patterns have been entering the language, the cumulative effect of sweeping sound changes within Iwaidja has complicated the transparency of reduplicative outputs. This has left the language with an extremely varied and complicated set of reduplication types, for some of which the analysis is no longer synchronically recoverable by children.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)159-176
    Number of pages18
    JournalMorphology
    Volume19
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Dec 2009

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