Reduplicant Vowels in Truku Reduplication

This paper examines the true nature of the reduplicant vowels in the two major types of reduplication in Truku, Cə- reduplication and CəCə- reduplication, which have been previously assumed to involve monosyllabic and disyllabic copying, respectively. The reduplicants of the two patterns (i.e., Cə- and CəCə-) contain schwas that are always considered as reduced vowels derived from the pretonic vowel reduction rule. Drawing evidence from three types of reduplication forms that have not been previously noticed/documented, that is, reduplication forms showing CəC- ∼CəCə- variation, as well as reduplication taking place on monosyllabic words and on CV.ʔ- initial words, this paper argues that the schwas in the reduplicants of the two reduplication patterns do not always come from vowel reduction. Although the first schwa in the CəCə-reduplicant does come from vowel reduction, the final schwas in the CəCə- and Cə- reduplicant are actually inserted vowels that function to break up CC clusters. The findings also show that Cə- reduplication only copies consonants from the Base. Therefore, Truku, just as Squliq Atayal, also involves bare consonant copying.