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'There's far too much arty-farty, namby-pamby, hoity-toity, wishy-washy, lardy-dardy, sun-dried tomato eating, decaffeinated fannying about!' : Reduplicative compounds and other iterative sequences in English

Manninen, Satu LU (2024) In Studia Neophilologica
Abstract (Swedish)
The aim of the paper is to (re-)evaluate the treatment of reduplicative expressions as compound words in nearly all previous work on English. Examples of reduplicative expressions are listed, out of context, and they are labelled as compound words, without providing proper motivations as to why it makes sense to treat them as compounds, in the sense of lexical items that are formed of other lexical items. The paper provides plenty of examples of how the reduplicatives listed in previous work are actually used in present-day English and examines the functions and interpretations of such expressions. The paper shows that most reduplicative expressions are not compound words. Some of them are words in their own right that cannot be divided... (More)
The aim of the paper is to (re-)evaluate the treatment of reduplicative expressions as compound words in nearly all previous work on English. Examples of reduplicative expressions are listed, out of context, and they are labelled as compound words, without providing proper motivations as to why it makes sense to treat them as compounds, in the sense of lexical items that are formed of other lexical items. The paper provides plenty of examples of how the reduplicatives listed in previous work are actually used in present-day English and examines the functions and interpretations of such expressions. The paper shows that most reduplicative expressions are not compound words. Some of them are words in their own right that cannot be divided into meaningful constituents. Some may have a more compound-like reading, alongside a clearly non-compound-like reading; for most such items, the latter function and interpretation seem to be most common. A large majority of alleged reduplicative compounds display clear non-compound-like behaviour. It will be shown that these expressions are likely to be sequences of words that are created by the same (syntactic) process/es that iterate or stack ‘ordinary’ nouns, adjectives and verbs in English. (Less)
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author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
in press
subject
keywords
reduplication, repetition, compound words, English, iteration, reduplication, repetition, iteration, compound words, English
in
Studia Neophilologica
publisher
Taylor & Francis
ISSN
0039-3274
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
b340e526-5147-42e5-835d-f5bc848e5c20
date added to LUP
2024-03-28 15:36:18
date last changed
2024-04-02 13:45:58
@article{b340e526-5147-42e5-835d-f5bc848e5c20,
  abstract     = {{The aim of the paper is to (re-)evaluate the treatment of reduplicative expressions as compound words in nearly all previous work on English. Examples of reduplicative expressions are listed, out of context, and they are labelled as compound words, without providing proper motivations as to why it makes sense to treat them as compounds, in the sense of lexical items that are formed of other lexical items. The paper provides plenty of examples of how the reduplicatives listed in previous work are actually used in present-day English and examines the functions and interpretations of such expressions. The paper shows that most reduplicative expressions are not compound words. Some of them are words in their own right that cannot be divided into meaningful constituents. Some may have a more compound-like reading, alongside a clearly non-compound-like reading; for most such items, the latter function and interpretation seem to be most common. A large majority of alleged reduplicative compounds display clear non-compound-like behaviour. It will be shown that these expressions are likely to be sequences of words that are created by the same (syntactic) process/es that iterate or stack ‘ordinary’ nouns, adjectives and verbs in English.}},
  author       = {{Manninen, Satu}},
  issn         = {{0039-3274}},
  keywords     = {{reduplication; repetition; compound words; English; iteration; reduplication; repetition; iteration; compound words; English}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Taylor & Francis}},
  series       = {{Studia Neophilologica}},
  title        = {{'There's far too much arty-farty, namby-pamby, hoity-toity, wishy-washy, lardy-dardy, sun-dried tomato eating, decaffeinated fannying about!' : Reduplicative compounds and other iterative sequences in English}},
  year         = {{2024}},
}