Abstract
Many analyses of reduplication within Optimality Theory have relied upon the use of a prosodic template constraint to determine the surface shape of a reduplicant. Semai, a language spoken in Malaysian, presents an interesting challenge for such an analysis. The surface form of the reduplicant in the phenomenon presented here is a string of two consonants. This type of reduplication fits in with the classification of bare-consonant reduplication, where a surface reduplicant is either a single consonant or a string of two consonants. In this paper, I discuss the difficulties in applying a prosodic template analysis to this data, and I propose an alternative account. This alternative account is formulated under the Compression Model, a model in which the shape of a reduplicant is determined by the satisfaction of morphological alignment constraints, not by the use of a prosodic template.
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Hendricks, S. Bare-Consonant Reduplication Without Prosodic Templates: Expressive Reduplication in Semai. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 10, 287–306 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017923215691
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017923215691