When Location Meets Reduplication: A Study of Reduplicated Locative Phrases in Lianjiang Yue Dialect

This paper examines a special locative phrase formed by reduplication in Lianjiang Yue dialect. The locative phrase is composed of reduplicated location nominals and locative pro-forms, with the locative pro-form occurring obligatorily. It is observed that (i) the reduplicated location nominal must be definite and can be easily identifiable in the context; (ii) the grammatical meaning of the location nominal changes from "location" to "next to/near" after reduplication; (iii) locative pro-forms occurring in the reduplicated locative phrase are restricted to those similar to here and there in English. It is argued that there is a functional category NEAR in the reduplicated locative phrase. Location nominals, being the reference point of "near", must be clearly specified, which results in the definiteness requirement imposed on them. The paper assumes that the locative pro-form is the head of the whole phrase, with the reduplicated location nominal as its modifier, which accounts for why the locative pro-form occurs obligatorily. The reduplicated locative phrase provides us with an opportunity to explore the internal structure of the locative phrase in Chinese and to learn the grammatical function of reduplication and the syntactic structure of reduplicative phrases.