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Drift and Noun Plural Reduplication in Afroasiatic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Robert R. Ratcliffe
Robert R. Ratcliffe
Affiliation:
Kumamoto Prefectural University, Kumamoto, Japan
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Extract

Noun plurals showing partial reduplication appear sporadically in a wide variety of Afroasiatic languages, particularly in the Chadic, Cushitic, and Semitic groups. In past treatments it has generally been assumed that these examples are remnants of a widespread proto-Afroasiatic process of plural formation by reduplication. The following paper argues on empirical and theoretical grounds that it is more likely that reduplication as such was not a means of plural formation in proto-Afroasiatic and that a reduplicated plural only occurred as a morpho-phonologically conditioned variant of the prosodically extended stem (or ‘nternal-a’) plural. This paper seeks to demonstrate that in those languages where reduplication does occur as a major means of plural formation it is more easily interpreted as an innovation rather than as a conservative retention.

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Articles
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , June 1996 , pp. 296 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1996

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