Reduplication in Palestinian Arabic: Full Patterns and the Status of Partial Forms

Abstract

Reduplication occurs in many languages, but identifying it in Arabic is not always straightforward because repeated sounds may have more than one source. The present study investigates full reduplication in Palestinian Arabic and reconsiders a group of forms that were initially treated as partial reduplication. The data were obtained from 73 native speakers of Palestinian Arabic between the ages of 30 and 70. Participants first completed a questionnaire in which they provided words, meanings, and information about use. Semi-structured interviews were then used when further explanation or additional examples were needed. The study follows a qualitative descriptive approach, with Morphological Doubling Theory providing the theoretical basis for the analysis. Full reduplication was clearly found in the data. Thirty-two forms showed repetition of the same C₁VC₂ sequence. The repeated sequence, however, did not behave in exactly the same way in every word. In forms such as daqdaq and fakfak, it can be linked to material that carries meaning on its own. Words such as saḥsaḥ, namnam, and jaʿjaʿ behave differently because the repeated sequence is not independently used with the meaning of the whole word. The inflected forms of fakfak also show that a reduplicated word can enter the regular verbal morphology of Palestinian Arabic. When the ten candidate partial forms were examined again, they did not show the same structural relationship. Some, such as baḥbūḥ and farfūš, appear to come from words that already have a reduplicative structure. In several of the remaining forms, it was difficult to identify exactly what had been copied from the proposed base. The remaining forms were therefore treated cautiously, with some retained as possible or borderline cases and others lacking sufficient evidence for a partial reduplicative analysis. The analysis also separates morphological reduplication from gemination, rhyming and echo expressions, discourse repetition, and cognate verb–noun constructions when no morphological copying can be demonstrated. The full forms also differ in meaning. In some words, reduplication is associated with an action that continues or happens repeatedly. In others, the form describes intensity or a particular state or change of state. These meanings were interpreted from the individual words and the contexts provided by the participants. On the evidence available here, full reduplication is much more clearly established than partial reduplication in Palestinian Arabic. More data are needed before the structure and productivity of partial reduplication can be described with the same confidence.