On Similative Reduplication in Vietnamese
Vietnamese has a productive reduplication strategy where the reduplicant appears to the right of the base and is segmentally identical to the base except that its last rime is <i>iếc</i> (pronounced [ɪək]). In this note, I attempt to account for some observations about <i>iếc</i...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Languages |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/10/7/150 |
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| Summary: | Vietnamese has a productive reduplication strategy where the reduplicant appears to the right of the base and is segmentally identical to the base except that its last rime is <i>iếc</i> (pronounced [ɪək]). In this note, I attempt to account for some observations about <i>iếc</i>, including the fact that it gives rise to ignorance inferences and is incompatible with classifiers. I propose that the semantics of <i>iếc</i> parallel the pragmatics of disjunctions and that the notion of similarity underlying the interpretation of <i>iếc</i> is contextual while that underlying the interpretation of classifiers is grammatical. The proposal makes use of some tools of predicate logic and formal semantics. |
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| ISSN: | 2226-471X |