Non-prototypical reduplication ed. by Aina Urdze (review)

Variation in the forms that reduplication can take in a language, as well as crosslinguistically, has confounded linguists for quite some time now. Efforts have been made along two clines of analysis: either to group all types together as one unified processual formation, or to separate the representational types of reduplication. Typically, this second view has differentiated full or complete reduplication from other types of partial reduplication, including echo words (which can go by a variety of names in the literature, depending on the language in question). Non-prototypical reduplication is a recent contribution to this second cline of analysis.

Many of the contributions in this volume adopt the ‘prototype approach’ that was proposed by Stolz, Stroh, and Urdze (2011) in their comprehensive study of complete reduplication. This group of scholars asserts that there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ examples of reduplication—a distinction that is hard to justify theoretically as well as on other sociocultural grounds. Relying on such charged terms in the English language creates a difficult translation into formalization. Thomas Stolz—in the final chapter of the volume under review—recognizes some of the difficulties of the prototype approach and introduces a ‘canonical’ approach, inserting yet another set of terms and definitions into the reduplication mix. I return to these points in my discussion of Stolz’s chapter later in this review.

The volume is a collection of seven case studies, some quite broad in scope, such as the chapters by Gregory D. S. Anderson on the Munda family and Anvita Abbi on the South Asian linguistic area. Others are more specific, focusing on a select language. The collection of case studies is introduced by a very brief preface of less than four pages, which really does not do service to the contributions that follow. The idea for the volume is commendable, but it lacks coherence, and the preface is an example of a missed opportunity to bring the chapters together. In spite of being a collection of workshop presentations, the authors diverge considerably on the theme of ‘non-prototypical reduplication’ and what that phrase implies. Some authors ignore the term altogether (Anderson), while others engage it directly (Stolz).

One problem for the volume stems from the confused interpretations for exactly what ‘non-prototypical reduplication’ is that are given in the editor’s preface. Aina Urdze states that the impetus for the workshop that led to the volume’s publication was an interest in the cases of ‘reduplication’ that ‘fall short’ of being proper reduplication: hence the title of the volume. Urdze talks about these cases as being noncases but still calls them reduplication. It is an unfortunate example of a thread of confusion that permeates the preface. Fortuitously, most of the individual chapters in the volume shine and provide important contributions to the overall literature.

So what is this volume about? The contributors all focus on types of expressivity in grammar that are difficult to formally characterize under a single rubric. I use the term ‘expressivity’ here intentionally to account for the types that have been grouped together in the present volume as ‘non-prototypical reduplication’.

The concept of expressivity owes to the historical trajectory of the term ‘expressive’ in the linguistics literature over the past century. Expressivity is the property of a language to deliver sensory information about an event, an entity, or another culturally determined category through a set of grammatical resources. This sensory information relates to culturally defined categories, categorized in the cognitive architecture of culture and grammar. Within this property of language, we find reduplication, expressives, ideophones, onomatopoeic forms, and other sound-symbolic constructions (cf. Williams 2021).

Abbi’s contribution to the volume covers a broad swath of forms and types throughout the South Asian linguistic area. Her approach is thoughtful and typologically sound, treating echo words as a type of expressive—broadly conceived. She does not employ the sort of value judgments that are...