• Aleendra Brahma

  Author

Reduplication is a morphophonemic process by which a word, the root or stem of it (or initial, medial or final phonological part of it) or another lexical item structurally/semantically related to it is repeated, which is called reduplicant. It is one of the common morphophonemic processes of word formation in Bodo, the major Tibeto-Burman language of northeast India.

On the basis of the different structures of the roots/stems and their reduplicants five different types of reduplication are found in Bodo; viz., full reduplication, partial reduplication, rhyming reduplication, ablaut reduplication and dissimilar reduplication.

As a typical kind of reduplication, dissimilar reduplication is found in Bodo, where the root/stem and its reduplicant do not have any similarity in structure. Moreover, the language witnesses good number examples of different kinds of reduplication which are very rarely found across languages. For example- Inherent reduplication (refer examples- 38-43).

As in other Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan languages, the function of the Bodo reduplicated elements includes- (i) to form plurals nouns, pronouns and adjectives; (ii) to intensify the action of a verb; (iii) to derive words: deverbal adverbials, denominal adverbials, deadjectival adverbials, collective nouns, etc.; (iv) to intensify adjectives and adverbs; (v) to derive compound adjective; etc.

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