Reduplication and deduplication in Baure: two processes pulling on different ends

Swintha Danielsen, University of Leipzig

Abstract

This article describes two strategies related to reduplication in Baure: full and partial
reduplication of lexical and grammatical material, and deduplication or morphological
haplology, i.e. the avoidance of accidental reduplication observed at word onsets.1

[Keywords: Baure, Arawakan, haplology, person marking, reciprocal, repetition, reduplication]

1. Introductioni

Baure is a seriously endangered language of Bolivian Amazonia, classified as belonging to the

southern branch of the Arawakan language family (Aikhenvald 1999). One dialect of Baure is
still spoken by 10 people in the town of Baures, in the department of Beni. Two other Baure
dialects, Carmelito and Joaquiniano, are virtually extinct, but the few data that could be
collected were saved in an online language archive. 2 The author of this article has
investigated the Baure language since 2003 and completed a descriptive grammar (Danielsen
2007). In addition to the recently collected data, historical data are available from the 18 th
century onwards, compiled by Jesuits and other missionaries (e.g. in Adam & Leclerc 1880),
travellers of the region (e.g. Fonseca 1881, 237−241), and SIL linguists (Baptista & Wallin
1967). This relatively long period from the first notes of Baure until today allows for the
identification of both older and more recent linguistic changes.3 One example of a relatively
recent diachronic development is the elision of word and syllable final vowels (cf. Baptista &
Wallin 1968; also compare to the article on the related language Trinitario by Rose 2014).
Some morphological strategies have changed under the continuous influence of the
dominant Spanish language, such as the progressive replacement of morphological valency
increasing affixation by analytic syntactic constructions (cf. Danielsen 2015a). The decreasing
productivity of reduplication (cf. Section 4) and the phenomenon of deduplication (cf. Section
5) may be more recent developments.
In Section 2, some structural characteristics of Baure are described. Section 3 gives a
compendium of all formal types of reduplication encountered in Baure, including lexicalized
reduplicated forms. The derivational value of reduplication with reference to the specific parts
of speech is also described in this section. Section 4 challenges the productivity of
reduplication in Baure today (4.1), pins down its main functions, and reflects on several
competing strategies of the same or similar functions (4.2). In Section 5, the apparently
reverse process of deduplication is described, and the conclusion of the findings is presented
in Section 6.

1
I would like to thank Hein van der Voort and Gale Goodwin Gómez for constructive comments on
earlier versions of this paper.
2
They were investigated during the Baure documentation project, which is financed by VW-DoBeS
(Documentation of Endangered Languages) and based at the University of Leipzig, Germany. The link
to the archive is: https://corpus1.mpi.nl/ds/asv/.
3
As for example shown in Danielsen 2012.

1
2. Structural notes on Baure

Like most Southern Arawakan languages, Baure can be considered a polysynthetic language,
with a particularly complex verbal morphology (cf. Aikhenvald 1999). Baure is an
agglutinating language, and morphemes can attach at different levels of the word. Figure 1
demonstrates the levelled structure of a verbal word:

personal base VERB BASE base base personal clausal

proclitic pre- suffixes, suffixes, enclitics enclitics
(S) fixes valency aspect
stem root stem
VERB STEM
prefix suffixes suffixes
COME
CLF/
REP
noun TRNS
IRR
incorpo- ABS BEN
aktions DEP O2 O1
CAUS ration APPL RCPC
-art VERB COS (R) (P)
ATTR PASS
pre- ROOT INTL
APRX LK
fixes PERF/REFL
SBJV WTE
COP
EXTS
DISTR
Figure 1: The structure of the verbal word

The verb base constitutes the meaning unit of a verb, to which aspectual, directional, and
valency changing affixes are attached, and the base is used as the citation form. However, the
verb base is not always also a syntactic unit. In some contexts, parts of the affixes of the base
may be dropped, and others may be inserted. The terms verb root, stem and base are used
here to distinguish the different levels of morpheme attachment. Verb roots are sometimes
CV and generally CVCV − of which the final V is often deleted or only present underlyingly −,
possibly followed by an incorporated noun or a classifier, and by a number of derivational
root suffixes (cf. Figure 1). It is frequently the case that a root is only used in combination
with specific morphemes, and we find only this lexicalized form of a verb base in the data, but
never the bare root (this is also true for fossilized reduplicated roots). Two examples for
fossilized verb bases derived from the same root -jaki- are given in (1) and (2).4

(1) rojakichow to ewonokoe’ Verb base: -jaki.ch-5

ro=jakicho-wo to ewonokoe’ -jaki.cho-
3SGm=close-COP ART door -closure.TRNS-
‘He closes the door.’ ‘close’

4
The same root is also lexicalized in the noun jaki.ro.so.ki ‘flute’
(closure.DER.CLF:wood/bone.CLF:bounded).
5
The dots indicate the possible segmentation of the forms into (lexicalized) morphemes. Since the
root plays an important role and is actually separated from the other lexicalized affixes in
reduplication, we need to indicate this in some way. Therefore, every verb base that will later be
segmented in an example will be represented by a citation form with these dots, marking the
segmentable morpheme boundaries.

2
(2) rojakiaw to jakirosoki Verb base: -jaki.a-
ro=jakia-wo to jakirosoki -jaki.a-
3SGm=play.flute-COP ART flute -closure.LK-
‘He is playing the flute.’ ‘play flute’

The verb bases -jaki.ch- ‘close’ and -jaki.a- ‘play flute’ derive from the same unidentified root
-jaki-, possibly going back to an older word for ‘door’ or ‘closure’. The root -jaki- does not
occur without the lexicalized morphemes in the Baure lexicon, but the forms can still be
etymologically decomposed into the basic root and the derivational suffixes, as indicated in
the examples. Even though nouns do not generally arrive at the same complexity as verbs,
they have bases which can be further decomposed.
Personal clitics, referring to the main arguments in a clause, attach to the extended base,
i.e. after attaching the base affixes. There are two main predicate types in Baure, verbal and
non-verbal, which are distinguished by their different kinds of argument marking strategies:
The subject of verbs is marked by a proclitic (3), whereas the subject of non-verbal predicates
is marked by an enclitic (4).

(3) royonpa
ro=yon-pa
3SGm=walk-INTL
‘He is going to take a walk.’

(4) yonowor
yono-wo=ro
surubi-COP=3SGm
‘It is a surubi (fish sp.).’6

This kind of split in the marking of subjects on stative predicates has been referred to as an
active-stative or intransitive split, but sometimes it is even subsumed under the term split-
ergative (cf. Danielsen & Granadillo 2007 for a detailed description).

3. Reduplication types in Baure

Reduplication was described as a common, but not always productive feature of Arawakan
languages (Aikhenvald 1999: 81). The structural types of reduplication differ in the languages
of the family, and the semantics of the constructions (verbal reduplication) range from
intensive, repetitive, or continued action to plurality of participants. There are several
different reduplication types in Baure (first mentioned in Baptista & Wallin 1967: 66, 81),
which can be distinguished on different levels. On the structural level, we find inherent versus
productive reduplication. On the formal level, there is full and partial phonotactically
progressive reduplication of disyllabic roots and reduplication or even triplication of single
syllables. On the functional level, there are the rather well-known semantic effects of

6
Baure words always show final vowel deletion of the vowel o. This process can also be observed to
various degrees word-internally; however, there it is dependent on prosodic features as well as
language register and speed.

3
reduplication: on the one hand, onomatopoeia 7 and iconic marking of iterativity,
augmentative, or repetitive (only lexicalized forms); on the other hand, productive
reduplication intensifies stative verbs, some action verbs, and adjectives. In addition, there are
traces of derivation by reduplication, but none of these is productive today. This section is
subdivided into nominal reduplicated forms (3.1), verbal reduplication (3.2), reduplication of
other parts of speech (3.3), and the reduplication of bound suffixes (3.4), mainly focussing on
inherently reduplicated forms. Productive reduplication is then analyzed in detail in Section 4.

3.1 Reduplicative nominal forms

In the Baure lexicon, and in other Arawakan languages, there are many reduplicated nouns,
the majority of which refer to animal and plant names (e.g. Apurinã in Facundes 2000:
250−251, compare also Parker 1995 for Iñapari). The overall rate of lexicalized reduplicated
nouns in the Baure lexicon is approximately 4% of all noun entries in the dictionary.
Reduplication of nouns is no longer productive. Reduplicated nouns from the Baure
dictionary show both cases of full and of partial reduplication of syllables or syllable
sequences, which usually do not have a (related) meaning in their simple forms. The
reduplication process is progressive, and it can be described as in Figure 2. The vowel may be
complex, and the consonant r occurs more frequently in reduplication than any of the other
consonants.

REDN1. (base prefix) - C1V1 C1V1 - (root/stem suffixes)

REDN2. (base prefix) - (CV) C1V1 C2V2 C1V1 C2V2 - (root/stem suffixes)
REDN3. (base prefix) - (CV) C1V1 C2V2 C2V2 - (root/stem suffixes)
Figure 2: Patterns REDN1 through REDN3 of lexical nominal reduplication8

Examples of lexicalized nouns with reduplicated syllable(s) are poepoe’ ‘bird sp.’ (REDN1),
sirisiri ‘falcon sp.’ (REDN2), sorisori ‘owl sp.’ (REDN2), moriri ‘termite’ (REDN3), and woretete
‘frog sp.’ (REDN3). The frequency of reduplicated nouns in the lexicon may suppose that
reduplication once was a productive process for the derivation of nouns, in particular animal
names. The function of reduplication can be argued to have been at least to some extent
onomatopoetic, imitating the sounds or movements of the animals, such as a birds’ song,
fluttering of its wings, a frogs’ croaking, and the like. Other reduplicated nouns refer to a
dispersed quantity, such as kirikiri ‘peanut’ (REDN2). Even though these obvious cases of
inherent reduplication cannot be regarded as actual morphological reduplication, there are
striking similarities to productive reduplication in Baure, and they are reanalysed as
reduplicated forms by today’s speakers.9
In some cases, it may look like we were dealing with regressive reduplication, due to the
occurrence of the reduplicated syllable(s) at the beginning of the word, as e.g. in tatasoe’
‘woodpecker’ (example (5), type REDN1) and wowori ‘beaver’ (REDN1). However, the
postulate here is that reduplication was a productive process that occurred right at the end of

7
Reduplicated forms in onomatopoeia are excluded from reduplication by others and referred to as
repetition; I apply a broader understanding of reduplication here.
8
The indices identify same vowels/consonants (same number index), and different vowel/consonant
(different number index). Reduplication is only marked by ~ when it is productive.
9
This became e.g. apparent by the forced neologism for creating a native word for the number 8 as
kiri, or when a word is incorporated, or an ad hoc classifier is derived, the simple form is taken.

4
a root morpheme. And since many nouns in Baure are complex − compounds of two nouns,
compounds of a noun and a classifier root, or derivations obtained by the attachment of one
or more derivational affixes − it is also possible that only one of the components of a
complex form is reduplicated. It can be observed that this is generally the first lexical root of
the complex form10, and thus these reduplicated forms concord with the patterns REDN1
through REDN3 presented in Figure 2. The original morphological composition is not always
transparent any more today. The following two examples are thus analyzed as fossilized
progressive reduplication within complex (compound or derived) nouns:

(5) tata.so.e’
tata-so-i
tata-APRX-CLF:fruit&bird
‘woodpecker’

(6) kojiroropi
ko-jiroro-pi
ATTR-jiroro-CLF:long&thin
‘yellow worm sp.’

The basic roots which were subject of reduplication in (5) and (6), ta and jiro respectively, do
not occur in isolation in the lexicon of contemporary Baure.
In addition to the syllable reduplication patterns REDN1 through REDN3, animal names in
particular show the repetition of a vowel − as e.g. kotowor ‘buzzard’, chomorror ‘cockroach’,
jomochoch ‘gray lizard −, or of a consonant − as in totikop ‘flee’, sisop ‘beetle sp.’. The
repetition of the vowel, on the one hand, may be related to vowel harmony, a common
process in the Baure morphophonology. The repetitive occurrence of a consonant, on the
other hand, is infrequent otherwise in the language, and it may indicate formerly reduplicated
syllables, of which one vowel underwent a change of quality. Even though the repetition of a
consonant cannot be called reduplication itself, it has something in common with lexical
reduplication, namely that the process occurs in the first root of a compound (or derived)
form. In addition, it will be demonstrated in Section 5 that Baure, like other Arawakan
languages, is very sensitive to repeated consonants in subsequent syllables, and it possibly
resolves the unwanted repetition of the same consonant by haplology (or deduplication). The
different pattern REDN4 is described in Figure 3:

REDN4. (CV(CV)) C1V1C1V2 - (root/stem suffixes)

Figure 3: Pattern REDN4 of lexical consonant repetition

Reduplication was productive for nominal derivation in very few cases, and each of them is
idiosyncratic. Two examples are -mo.m (-mo~mo; CLF:textile~CLF:textile) ‘vagina’ and
cho.mo.mo.e’ ‘flower’ (7), both of which include the reduplicated classificatory root -mo
‘textile’. The same classificatory root is part of the compound cho.m ‘skin’ (8), from which
cho.mo.mo.e’ ‘flower’ was derived by means of reduplicating the final syllable and adding the
emphatic suffix -i’, which assimilates into -e’ after the round vowel.

10
In compounds this is the modifier of the second lexical root (head); see Admiraal & Danielsen 2015
for details on the productivity of compounding in Baure.

5
(7) chomomoe’ (8) chom
cho-mo~mo-i’ cho-mo
big-CLF:textile~RED-EMPH big-CLF:textile
‘flower’ ‘skin’

Nominal compounding is frequent in Baure, and for this reason we also find compounds of
two reduplicated forms, as in (9):

(9) jaja.s.tot (10) koji.s.tot (11) jaja.p

jaja-so-toto koji-so-toto jaja-po
sand-APRX-CLF:round stone-APRX-CLF:round sand-CLF:multitude
‘sand type (coarse grained sand)’ ‘pebble’ ‘sand type (fine sand)’

The two reduplicated forms jaja- ‘sand type’ and -tot(o) ‘CLF:round’ already entered as
lexicalized units into the compound noun jaja.s.tot ‘sand type’ (9). They are both bound
morphemes, which also occur in other compounds of a noun and a classifier noun, as shown
jaja.p ‘fine sand’ (11).

3.2 Reduplicative verbal forms

Approximately 8% of the verbal items in the lexicon consist of reduplicated syllables or
syllable sequences, the majority of which do not have a related simplex form. Many of these
verbs describe an intrinsically iterative event, such as ‘shiver’, ‘itch’, ‘pant’, ‘drizzle’, ‘roll about’,
‘twinkle’, and more. This frequently onomatopoeic reduplication is similar to lexical nominal
reduplication. The simplest type of lexicalized reduplicated verbs is described in Figure 4
(compare REDV1 to REDN1), and the equivalent examples are (12) and (13).

REDV1. pers. proclitic = (base prefix) - C1V1C1V1 - (root/stem/base suffixes)

Figure 4: Pattern REDV1 of lexical verbal reduplication

(12) rosiasiakpaw tech nesh. Verb base: -siasia.k-

ro=siasia-ko-pa-wo tech nesh siasia-ko
3SGm=fry-ABS-INTL-COP DEM2m meat siasia-ABS
‘He is going to fry that meat.’ ‘fry’

(13) ach nga rowak. (14) rowawakow to kove’.

ach nga ro=wa-ko ro=wa~wa-ko-wo to kove’
and NEG 3SGm=bark-ABS 3SGm=bark~bark-ABS-COP ART dog
‘And it didn’t bark.’ ‘The dog is barking.’

Examples (13) and (14) actually represent a borderline case: the form can be used without
reduplication -wa.k- ‘bark’ (13), but the reduplicated verb -wa.wa.k- ‘bark’ (14) is by far more
common. The simplex root is copied completely, but the verb base still needs to get the stem
closing suffix -ko ‘ABS’ attached.11 Verbal roots are generally disyllabic, and for this reason the

11
The stem closing suffix can be found in many Arawakan languages, and it has often been labelled
“thematic suffix”. Its function remains to be analyzed, but in Baure it seems to be related to a (direct or

6
first pattern (REDV1) could also be a derivational strategy to fulfil minimal verb root
requirements as CVCV. This is supported by the fact that the simplex root of (13) can occur,
but the speakers generally prefer the reduplicated form. However, there are also a small
number of monosyllabic basic verb roots. The main motivation for the preference of the form
in (14) is probably the sound symbolism represented through the repetition of the root
syllable.
The predominant pattern of lexicalized verbal reduplication is the progressive partial or
full reduplication of a disyllabic root, as presented in Figure 5.12

REDV2. pers. clitic = (base prefix) - (CV) C1V1C2V2C1V1C2V2 - (root/stem/base suffixes)

Figure 5: Pattern REDV2 of lexical verbal reduplication

Baure words usually display a strict CVCV structure. However, if the second vowel of a root is
an o, it is often deleted in faster speech, for which reason the reduplicated outcome may be
CVC~CVC, as in -jap(o)jap(o).’in- ‘cough’ (15), which is regarded as a subtype of pattern
REDV2.

(15) rojapjap’inow Verb base: -japjap.’in-

ro=japjap’ino-wo -japjap-ino-
3SGm=cough-COP japjap-SBJV
‘He is coughing.’ ‘cough’

(16) nimiajamiaja’inow tech nipinokiach. Verb base: -miajamiaja.’in-

ni=miaja.miaja’ino-wo tech ni=pinokia-cho -miajamiaja-’ino-
1SG=pant-COP DEM2m 1SG=run-PTCP miajamiaja-SBJV
‘I am panting from my running.’ ‘pant’

(17) royoporoporokow-ji tech showekon. Verb base: -yoporoporo.k-

ro=yoporo.poro-ko-wo=ji tech showekon -yoporoporo-ko-
3SGm=shiver-ABS-COP=QUOT DEM2m jaguar yoporoporo-ABS
‘The jaguar was shivering (from the cold).’ ‘shiver (from cold)’

Next to iterative action, there are various instances of onomatopoeic reduplication or the
sound symbolic repetition of disyllabic verb roots, such as -torotorojik- ‘cackle
(hen)’, -kachoworoworek- ‘make (a lot of) noise’, -chokorokorok- ‘rumble (stomach)’,
or -wotowotok- ‘boil’. Some lexicalized reduplicated verbs do not refer directly to these two
meanings (iterativity, repetitive, or onomatopoeic), such as -seriserich-
‘misunderstand’, -sovisovik- ‘crouch with legs over’, or -yeriyerianjek- ‘stop laying eggs (hen)’.

oblique) object of the described event. Rose analyzed it as an “active suffix” for Trinitario (cf. Rose
2014), however, its occurrence with a great number of stative verbs makes this analysis implausible for
Baure. The suffix -ko occurs in Baure verbs and nouns; in the latter it is used for the derivation of
absolute unpossessed nouns. In verbal incorporation, it is regularly replaced by a noun or classifier, but
it may also co-occur with a classifier. For the time being, this suffix is called “absolute suffix” on both
nominal and verbal bases.
12
This reduplication type has also been described for the Arawakan language Warekena (Aikhenvald
1995:31).

7
 Some inherently reduplicated verb roots only show the copying of the final syllable of the
root. The corresponding reduplication pattern is given in Figure 6, and examples follow in
(18) and (19):

REDV3a. pers. clitic = (base pref.) - (CV) C1V1 C2V2 C2V2 - (root/stem/base suffixes)
Figure 6: Pattern REDV3a of lexical verbal reduplication

The onset syllable is given as C1V1, however, it may alternatively consist of only a vowel, or
even be preceded by an extended onset (CV). The consonant of the reduplicated syllable is
frequently r, as in (19):

(18) rotoromomokiow.
ro=toromomo-ki-wo
3SGm=be.clean-CLF:bounded-COP
‘It is clean inside.’

(19) apikori ver tech nokasiroropaki to rekirok.

api-kori ver tech no=kasiroro-pa-ki to rekirok
two-arrow PERF DEM2m 3PL=destroy-CLF:gourd-CLF:bounded ART gourd
‘Two arrows destroyed the gourd’s inside.’

Verb bases with the initial glide y may show regressive reduplication or triplication, including
the change of the vowel. This does not concern lexicalized verb roots. But it cannot be
argued either that this is a very productive process, because only very few verb roots begin
with the consonant y, and apparently only the two verbs -ya.k- ‘be ripe’ and -ya- ‘cry’ display
this behaviour.

(20) wokow kik royiyakow.

wokow kik ro=yi~ya-ko-wo
not.yet really 3SGm=RED~be.ripe-ABS-COP
‘It is not really ripe yet.’

(21) riyiyiyaw ti Hosebiasita.

ri=yi~yi~ya-wo ti Hosebiasita
3SGf=RED~RED~cry-COP ARTf Eusebiacita
‘Poor little Eusebia cried and cried.’

The pattern found here presumably originated in progressive reduplication of the syllable,
but due to phonetic raising of the vowel surrounded by the glide, the first syllables have
changed their shape. This subpattern is described in Figure 7:

REDV3b. pers. clitic = (base pref.) - (yi~) yi~ yV - (root/stem/base suffixes)

Figure 7: Subpattern REDV3b of (productive) regressive verbal reduplication

8
3.3 Reduplication in other word classes
Other parts of speech that may be subject to productive reduplication are adjectives, adverbs,
and personal pronouns. There are different morphological kinds of adjectives in Baure, and
they can be argued to be a subclass of nouns, with the specific function of designating
certain qualities or attributes of arguments. One kind of adjectives is a small class of right-
bound roots, which form compounds with classifiers or noun roots, sometimes followed by a
nominalizing suffix -no ‘NMLZ’. Reduplication is found either with the complete root − as in
apo’apan (apo~apo-a-no; multicoloured~multicoloured-CLF:body-NMLZ) ‘multicoloured
animal’ − or at the end of the root as partial reduplication, but always preceding the classifier
root:

(22) ndopawapa ka tech in posisiaren.

ni=topo-a-wapa ka tech in posi~si-are-no
1SG=be.dirty-CLF:body-COS because DEM2m water turbid~RED-CLF:liquid-NMLZ
‘I’m dirty because the water is very turbid.’

Many adjectives are derived from verbal bases by the nominalizing suffix -no, as e.g. -acho.k-
‘fill’ < ach.ko.n (acho-ko-no; fill-ABS-NMLZ) ‘full (lit. filled)’. Both verbs and adjectives may
incorporate classifiers or body parts (generally in the slot of the absolute suffix -ko, if this
suffix is part of the base). The derived adjective topopok.o.n (topo~po-ko-no; be.dirty~RED-
ABS-NMLZ) ‘dirty’ displays reduplication of the root final syllable po, which is obligatory with
the adjective but not the verb -topo.k- (topo-ko; be.dirty-ABS) ‘be dirty’. So, in this example,
reduplication also had a derivative function, which, however, cannot be generalized.

(23) ndopawapa koech tech in topoparen.

ni=topo-a-wapa koech tech in topopo-are-no
1SG=be.dirty-CLF:body-COS because DEM2m water dirty-CLF:liquid-NMLZ
‘My body is dirty because that water is dirty.’

Reduplication intensifies the meaning, and this most frequently applies to the description of
a state. The example in (23), where reduplication is obligatory in the adjective root and may
thus be considered as part of the derivational process from the verb -topo.k- ‘be dirty’ to the
adjective, is exceptional. Adjectives are productively derived by the nominalizer, and
reduplication has simply been lexicalized in this specific adjective topop.ko.n ‘dirty’.13 Since all
adjectives are nominal, and many of them can be considered to be nominalized verbs, the
reduplication patterns do not differ from those detected in verbal reduplication: The
predominant pattern found among adjectives, is pattern REDV3a (cf. Figure 6). One more
example is given in (24):

(24) eviroroniawon (25) evirokowon

eviro~ro-ni-a-wo-no eviro-ko-wo-no
timid~RED-voice-LK-COP-NMLZ timid-ABS-COP-NMLZ
‘a very timid voice’ ‘patient, timid’14

13
This form is also reminiscent of pattern REDN3 in Figure 2.
14
It is not clear why some adjectives derived from verbs need the copula suffix -wo in addition to the
nominalizer.

9
Reduplication does not play an important role in adverbial morphology, but a few adverbs
can be reduplicated, such as naka ‘over there’ and nakaka ‘over there (far away)’, augmenting
the distance. Also kope’ap ‘late’ can be reduplicated as kopepe’ap ‘very late’. In both cases
reduplication has an intensifying function. Only in the case of nanan ‘later’ (< nan ‘there’) a
new lexeme has been created through reduplication. The pattern is always partial
reduplication, like pattern REDV3a of verbal reduplication. By far a more productive process
for the intensifying derivation of adverbs, though, is the attachment of the emphatic
suffixes -i’ or -ikoe’ (cf. 4.2).
It is noteworthy that personal pronouns and the numeral ‘one’ (53) can also be
reduplicated. The function is the intensification of the referent ‘all alone’. It should be
mentioned here that personal pronouns tend to be used mainly as predicate bases, and not
as pronouns proper, considering that Baure has a personal cliticization system for the
pronominalization of arguments. Reduplication of personal pronouns resembles that of
adjectives and verbal roots (REDV3a), because it is always only partial reduplication of the
final syllable of the lexical root.

(26) ach tech monchi rimowanap rotitikoe’ noiy paraki-ye.

ach tech monchi ri=imowana-po roti~ti-ikoe’ noiy paraki-ye
and DEM2m child 3SGf=leave-PRFLX 3SGm~RED-EMPH there room-LOC
‘And she left the child all alone there in the room.’

As can be observed in example (26), reduplication is accompanied by other morphemes for

intensification, here it is -ikoe’ ‘EMPH’. (cf. 4.2).
Another reduplication observed in Baure involves the hortative particle shi:

(27) shi shi waporeiyshap!

shi shi vi=a-poreiy-sha-pa
HORT HORT 1PL=do-REP-IRR-INTL
‘Let’s go, let’s go do it again!’

Reduplication is the only morphological operation this particle undergoes, and instead of
regarding this as a grammatical operation, it should rather be called the spontaneous
repetition of an interjection (cf. Hurch & Mattes 2009:109).

3.4 Reduplication of bound forms

Among the bound morphemes that can be reduplicated are the augmentative suffix -cha and
diminutive -chi, which have an intensifying function by themselves:

(28) tech aren tech chichacha kotinow tiporek.

tech aren tech ch-i-cha~cha kotino-wo tiporek
DEM2m bird DEM2m big-CLF:bird&fruit-AUG~AUG similar-COP chicken
‘This is a bird, this very big one, which is similar to a chicken.’

In example (28), the augmentative is reduplicated. With the classifier -a for ‘body, animal’, the
adjective base becomes homophonous to the augmentative, and the word looks like a

10
triplication: chachacha ‘a really big animal’ (ch-a-cha~cha; big-CLF-AUG~AUG). However, it is
the augmentative that is reduplicated, and the root only accidentally comes out as the same
syllable.
Reduplication of the root (or parts of it) can also have a reciprocal meaning in some
languages (cf. Marantz & Wiltshire 2000:561). It is therefore not so surprising that the
reciprocal in Baure also involves a reduplication of some sort. However, the reduplicated
syllable here is not part of the lexical root, but it is a grammatical suffix -koko ‘RECP’. Many
verbal bases include the stem closing suffix -ko ‘ABS’, of which the function is not so easily
analyzed. It seems to be somehow related to a (direct or oblique) object of the described
event, but not necessarily to transitivity.15 The suffix is part of the verbal base, but may be
deleted under certain conditions. The actual function of this suffix remains to be investigated;
this analysis should also take into account the comparable Arawakan data, because this suffix
occurs in some form in almost every Arawakan language. In relation to the simple verbal
suffix -ko, the reciprocal -koko could be analyzed as a kind of verbal number, specifying
event number (as defined by Corbett 2000). The reduplicated suffix -ko possibly indicates the
plurality of (transitive?) events in a reciprocal situation. In a great number of Arawakan
languages, the reciprocal suffix is derived in exactly the same way, by reduplicating the stem
closing suffix (alternative forms are -ka in Moxo Ignaciano, and -’a ‘TH’ in Iñapari).16

(29) vijinokow (30) vijinokokow Baure

vi=jino-ko-wo vi=jino-koko-wo
1PL=see-ABS-COP 1PL=see-RECP-COP
‘We see (are looking).’ ‘We see/look at each other.’

(31) nunika (32) tinikakana Moxo Ignaciano

nu-ni-ka
1SG-eat.bite-ABS
‘I ate/bit.’
(33) awɨno’ápiramári
aw-ɨno-’á-pira-má-ri
1PL-kill-TH-INTL-COP-3SGm
‘We are going to kill it.’
ti-ni-kaka-ana
3-eat.bite-RECP-PL
‘They bit each other.’
(Olza Zubiri et al. 2004, 83; 459)
(34) awɨno’a’apiráma Iñapari17
aw-ɨno-’a’a-pirá-ma
1PL-kill-RECP-INTL-COP
‘We are going to kill each other.’ (Parker 1995, 198)

The reduplication of the suffix is iconic, if each of the morphemes -ko-ko in Baure stands for
another object or direction of the action (or event and direction of the event). It may be
questioned whether the repeated application of this bound form can be called reduplication,
or if these are two succeeding morphological derivations. The meaning of reciprocity is
assigned to the repetition of the suffix -ko ‘ABS’. The only occurrence of one single suffix -ko
‘ABS’ for reciprocal marking is after the benefactive suffix. The examples of this in the data are
constructed in elicitation, and benefactive and reciprocal are not combined in spoken Baure

15
cf. footnote 11
16
The analysis of this suffix in Arawakan languages is still problematic. Parker calls -’a (-ha in his
spelling) a “thematic suffix” in Iñapari.
17
The spelling of Iñapari has been adjusted to that of the other languages in this article, thus the
glottal stop is represented by ’ instead of h.

11
(cf. Danielsen 2015b). The speakers seem to perceive the complex form -koko ‘RCPC’ as a unit
today, confirmed by the finding of this unit as a root morpheme itself:

(35) nokokoropoewanchokow.
no=koko-ro-poewan-cho-ko-wo
3PL=RECP-DER-side-TRNS-ABS-COP
‘They are (sitting) side by side.’

In Iñapari the form -’a’a also served as (part of) the base of the following forms in Parker’s
(1995) dictionary: -’a’awanaara- ‘embrace, hug’, -pa’a’a- ‘distribute’, and -a’a’anu- ‘cross’.

4. Productivity of reduplication

It became evident in Section 3 that reduplication occurs with various word classes in Baure,
and it may have had an important derivational function. This section further examines the
productivity of reduplication. “The productivity of a word-formation process can be defined
as its general potential to be used to create new words and as the degree to which this
potential is exploited by the speakers” (Plag 2005:127). As argued here, reduplication can still
be regarded as a productive process, albeit under particular semantic and phonological
restrictions (4.1). In addition to these structural restrictions, reduplication decreased its
productivity and may have been replaced by fully productive derivational suffixes and
adverbs that express the intended meaning (4.2).

4.1 Productive reduplication

Today the Baure language makes productive use of reduplication, however, with certain
restrictions. These are not syntactic but semantic restrictions, which do not allow for all words
to be reduplicated. Generally, mainly stative verbs and adjectives are reduplicated
productively, whereas active verbs receive one of the more specific derivational suffixes, e.g.
the repetitive suffix -poreiy (4.2). Many of the verbs or adjectives have an idiosyncratic
reduplicated form, which is stored in the lexicon, together with the simplex form.
While -chi.’in- ‘be sated’ may be reduplicated (37), its antonym -veiy.’in- ‘be hungry’ cannot
be reduplicated as *-veiy~veiy.’in-, instead other strategies can be employed (4.2).
Reduplication concerns the root, but the verb base (the meaning unit, cf. Section 2) may
consist of more morphemes, as in -chi.’in- ‘be sated’, which can be decomposed into the root
chi, and the root suffix -’ino, which is applied to bodily function, feelings, and other subjective
states or events.

12
(36) richi’inowapa18 (37) richichi’inowapa.
ri=chi-’ino-wapa ri=chi~chi-’ino-wapa
3SGf=be.sated-SBJV-COS 3SGf=be.sated~be.sated-SBJV-COS
‘She is already sated.’ ‘She is already very full (sated).’

Productivity may be viewed as a gradual notion that distinguishes different degrees of

productivity (Plag 2005:121). There are various formal types of reduplication, and these may
be placed on a scale of relative productivity. Figure 8 is a list of the available formal types,
from least to most productive, and the patterns correspond to the presented patterns of
verbal and nominal lexical reduplication (Figures 2, 4−6): REDV1 and REDN1 (RED1), REDV2
and REDN2 (RED2), REDV3a and REDN3 (RED3a and RED3b).

full monosyllabic
RED1. C1V1~C1V1 less productive
reduplication
(full or partial) disyllabic
RED2. (CV) C1V1C2V2~C1V1C2V2
reduplication
RED3a. (CV) C1V1 C2V2~C2V2 partial monosyllabic reduplication
partial reduplication and
RED3b. (CV) C1V1 rV2~rV2 (~rV2) most productive
triplication with the consonant r
Figure 8: Productive reduplication and triplication in Baure in increasing productivity

The least productive patterns are those with full reduplication of a monosyllabic root and the
reduplication of a disyllabic (part of a) root, patterns RED1 and RED2. These types also occur
more frequently in lexicalized onomatopoeic words, and RED2 is applied slightly more
productively than RED1.19 Examples are given in (38) through (41):

(38) rivekow (39) rivevekow pattern RED1

ri=ve-ko-wo ri=ve~ve-ko-wo
3SGf=speak-ABS-COP 3SGf=speak~speak-ABS-COP
‘She is talking.’ ‘She talks a lot.’

(40) nijishkier (41) nijishjishkier pattern RED2

ni=jish-ko=ro ni=jish~jish-ko=ro
1SG=drag-ABS=3SGm 1SG=drag~drag-ABS=3SGm
‘I am dragging it.’ ‘I am dragging it (quickly).’

As examples (39) and (41) show, monosyllabic and disyllabic reduplication also occurs with
active verbs. Depending on the verbs’ semantics, this may also refer to speed of the action.

18
This kind of segmentation was described in Section 2. Here we can definitely see that it causes
problems: the root itself does not really carry the meaning ‘to be sated’, but it has to be combined with
the root suffix -’ino. In reduplication the affixation within the base appears to be less fixed, and the
reduplicated morpheme is inserted before the other elements (even though possibly obligatory) are
attached. For the matter of transparency of the reduplicated forms, also the simple forms are
decomposed in the glosses. Generally in other texts, these bases are glossed as units.
19
This is the result of a type count in the Baure data.

13
The verb base with its stem affixes is not always identical in the reduplicated form. The
verb -piri.k- (-piri-ko-; cut-ABS) ‘cut in halves’ is reduplicated as -piri.piri.ch- (-piri~piri-cho-;
cut~cut-TRNS) ‘cut into pieces’, while the roots are identical, the reduplicated verb base
receives the stem suffix -cho instead of the -ko in the simplex form. The verb bases of (42)
and (43) are not identical either, but the roots are:

(42) nipotokow (43) npotopotjew pattern RED2

ni=poto-ko-wo ni=poto~poto-je-wo
1SG=be.wet-ABS-COP 1SG=be.wet~be.wet-DISTR-COP
‘I am wet.’ ‘I am soaking wet (all over).’

The distributive suffix -je in (43) seems to be attached obligatorily to the reduplicated verb
base in this specific example and replaces -ko.
The most productive type is the reduplication of the root final syllable (pattern RED3a), a
pattern also found in many lexicalized nouns (REDN3), verbs (REDV3a), and other parts of
speech. This type may come in different actual forms: simply as C1V1 C2V2~C2V2, with a short
onset V1 C2V2~C2V2, or with an additional onset syllable CV C1V1 C2V2~C2V2 or V C1V1
C2V2~C2V2. Examples of productively reduplicated verbs of pattern RED3a and RED3b are (45)
and (47):
Pattern RED3a
(44) roeshomow (45) ach roeshomomokopaw noiy shonki-ye.
ro=ishomo-wo ach ro=ishomo~mo-ko-pa-wo noiy shonki-ye
3SGm=stand-COP and 3SGm=stand~RED-ABS-INTL-COP there way-LOC
‘He is standing.’ ‘And he stayed standing there on the road.’
Pattern RED3b
(46) romorokowapa (47) tech ewokoe’ ver romororokowapa.
ro=moro-ko-wapa tech ewokoe’ ver ro=moro~ro-ko-wapa
3SGM=be.dry-ABS-COS DEM2m tree already 3SGm=be.dry~RED-ABS-COS
‘It is already dry.’ ‘That tree is already drying out.’

Pattern RED3b is also frequently observed in other parts of speech, like adjectives (example
(24)) and adverbs, of which there is an example in (49):

(48) mavir roti’ rovekowori.

mavir roti’ ro=ve-ko-wo=ri
in.vain 3SGm 3SGm=speak-ABS-COP=3SGf
‘In vain he spoke to her.’

(49) mavirorekoe’ ndi’ nijichowor. Pattern RED3b

maviro~ro-ikoe’ ndi’ ni=jicho-wo=ro
in.vain~RED-EMPH 1SG 1SG=wait-COP=3SGm
‘Completely in vain I waited for him.’

14
The most productive reduplication type (RED3b) also allows for triplication:

(50) ijiriririawon-nish ti Korpochi. Pattern RED3b

ijiri~ri~ri-a-wo-no=nish ti Korpo-chi
how.much~RED~RED-LK-COP-NMLZ=EXCLA ARTf Corpa-DIM
‘How much was Corpita (in love).’

Pattern RED3b, is so productive that even lexicalized verbs change their form accordingly:
The verb -showoroworoek- ‘jump about’ (pattern REDV2, cf. RED2) can also be found in the
form -showroroek- (rather according to pattern RED3b). The base -avero.ch- ‘go far’ can
either undergo disyllabic (-avero.vero.ch-; avero~vero-cho; go.far~RED-TRNS; RED2) or
monosyllabic reduplication -avero.re.ch- (avero~ro-i-cho; go.far-RED-EMPH-TRNS; RED3b) ‘go
very far’ without a difference in meaning.
The reduplication of syllables with initial r can be observed in a number of lexicalized
forms, e.g. -aserora- ‘be rotten’, -rarak- ‘swallow’ (< -er(o) ‘drink’). Also disyllabic reduplicated
syllables often include the consonant in lexicalized verbs: -chokorokorok- ‘rumble
(stomach)’, -chomoremore- ‘thunder’, -choporiporich- ‘roll about’, -chorochorosoe- ‘drizzle,
drop (when rain ends)’, -poroporok- ‘tremble with fear’, -shipiripirik- ‘roll’, -shoporiporik-
‘turn around’, -yivirivirik- ‘tremble with pain’.20 None of the preceding verbs have a related
simple form. In the case of the disyllabic verb with the initial glide -yori- ‘be angry’, we do not
find the possible regressive reduplication *-yi~yori- (REDV3b), but it is the syllable with the
consonant r that gets copied as -yori~ri- ‘be very angry’. In Iñapari, where only partial
reduplication of the final CV syllable is present in the lexicon, the majority of reduplicated
lexemes include the consonant r: -pɨruru’a- ‘fly’, -ajɨrɨrɨ’a- ‘turn around’, -tururu’a- ‘pull’,
ɨteririjetíri ‘diarrhoea’, and ɨrɨrɨ ‘big’ (cf. Parker 1995); no related simplex forms are available in
this dictionary.

4.2 Competing strategies and co-occurrences

The productivity of reduplication is delimited by an important structural factor; there are a
variety of specific morphemes available for the marking of intensity and iterativity or
repetition, mainly bound forms (suffixes), but also adverbs. These morphological alternatives
can be called “type blocking” following Plag (2005:126), namely more specific affixes that
preclude the application of a more general affix (reduplication). The alternatives are not
necessarily type blocking, but they may have played an important role in the ceasing
productivity of reduplication. The most important morphemes are the emphatic suffixes -i’
and -ikoe’. Emphatic derivation is extremely common − see (51) through (53). It is neither
restricted to a part of speech, nor to semantics, and it may also co-occur with reduplication
(53). Example (51) with emphatic marking on the stative verb -chi.’in- ‘be sated’ represents an
alternative to reduplication, as in (37).

(51) vichi’inoekoe’
vi=chi-’ino-ikoe’
1PL=be.sated-SBJV-EMPH
‘We are very sated (full).’

20
Baptista & Wallin (1967:66) refer to the “core formatives” -ri, -ro, -re, -ra.

15
The active verb -kach- ‘go’ can only get emphatic morphology attached, and is never
reduplicated:

(52) tech rikachowekoe’, kach risapkoe’ tech jowoki.

tech ri=kacho-wo-ikoe’ kach ri=sapoko-i’ tech jowoki
DEM2m 3SGf=go-COP-EMPH go 3SGf=poke-EMPH DEM2m hole
‘And this is what she did, she went away (emphatic); she went away in order to poke
(emphatic) that hole.’

However, reduplication can be one way to intensify, and emphatic marking can augment this
intensification, as in (53):

(53) ponshoshkowapoekoeri noiy eshenokoe-ye.

po-no-sho~sh-ko-wapa-ikoe’=ri noiy eshenokoe-ye
one-CLF:general-one~RED-ABS-COS-EMPH=3SGf there river.side-LOC
‘Now she was all alone there at the river bank.’

Repeated action is marked by the complex morpheme -poreiy in Baure:

(54) rokovekoporeiyer (55) *rokovekoevekoporeiyer

ro=kove-ko-poreiy=ro ro=kove~kove-ko-poreiy=ro
3SGm=catch-ABS-REP=3SGm 3SGm=catch~catch-ABS-REP=3SGm
‘He caught him again.’

Some verbs are flexible with respect to their interpretation as stative or active, reflected in
their morphological behaviour. While the verb with reduplication (with possible additional
emphatic marking) is interpreted as a continuous state (57), the form marked by -poreiy ‘REP’,
is interpreted as a punctually repeated action (56). The repetitive morpheme is thus, at least
in some cases, type-blocking for active verbs.

(56) noiy avik roeshomoporeiy (57) noeshomomokikwe'

noiy avik ro=ishomo-poreiy no=ishomo~mo-kik-wo-i’
there again 3SGm=stand-REP 3PL=stand~RED-really-COP-EMPH
‘There he stood up again.’ ‘They only kept standing.’

Adjectives can not only be intensified by the emphatic suffixes -i’ and -i.ko.e’ (-i-ko-i’; EMPH-
ABS-EMPH), but also by augmentative -cha (28) and diminutive -chi. Adverbs are generally
derived once or twice by emphatic derivation:

(58) rom > romoe’ > romoekoe’

romo romo-i’ romo-i-ko-i’
soon soon-EMPH soon-EMPH-ABS-EMPH
‘soon’

Thus, even though certain suffixes may co-occur with reduplication, they can already mark
intensification with the non-reduplicated bases. They do not fully block the possibility of

16
additional reduplication, but they make it redundant. Emphatic derivation is much more
productive than reduplication, and it has replaced it diachronically in many examples
(compare examples (37) and (51)).
Comparable to diminutive is the approximative suffix -so, which attenuates the meaning of
a verb (“be about to” or “be a little bit”) or of an adjective (“-ish”). This meaning can be
produced by reduplication in the closely related Trinitario language (cf. Rose 2014), but not in
Baure.

(59) niveiyso’inow.
ni=veiy-so-’ino-wo
1SG=be.hungry-APRX-SBJV-COP
‘I am a little bit hungry.’

(60) tixrerexi
ti-ixVre~re-xi Trinitario
3-be.hot~RED-CLF:bulk
‘It is warm (medium hot).’ (Rose 2014:383)

Finally, a very wide range of adverbs and preverbal particles, like imir ‘very’, maiy(ok) ‘much’,
kik/kiyok ‘really’, avik ‘again’, can be employed to intensify a verb or an adjective instead of
reduplication. The ceasing usage of productive reduplication may be part of the grammatical
development of Baure from synthetic to analytic and isolating constructions (cf. Danielsen
2015a).

5. Deduplication in Baure

A more recent phenomenon in Baure seems to be the avoidance of accidental reduplication

of the same syllable at word onsets, such as *ninik (ni=nik; 1SG=eat) ‘I ate’. This is only true
for nouns or verbs with person marking by a proclitic for possessor or subject marking. First
of all, the closed set of personal proclitics ni= ‘1SG’, pi= ‘2SG’, ro= ‘3SGm’, ri= ‘3SGf’, vi= ‘1PL’,
yi= ‘2PL’, and no= ‘3PL’, presents syllables that are otherwise rarely found at word onsets. The
Baure speakers are sensitive to the initial syllable, and if a personal proclitic is similar or
identical to the onset of a base, the accidental reduplication is resolved, as in (62).

(61) pinik, ronik, rinik, BUT: (62) *ninik, nik

pi=nik ro=nik ri=nik ni=nik nik
2SG=eat 3SGm=eat 3SGf=eat 1SG=eat 1SG.eat
‘you (SG) ate; he ate; she ate’ BUT ‘I ate’

This phenomenon in (62) has been called morphological haplology (cf. Stemberger 1981,
Plag 1998, de Lacy 1999). And “[h]aplology seems to be the opposite of reduplication:
reduplication creates two adjacent identical strings while haplology eliminates them” (de Lacy
1999:24). Therefore, haplology in Baure can be regarded as a deduplication process, a
process in which accidental meaningless reduplication is eliminated by merging the
redundant syllable of the personal proclitic with the first syllable of the word to which it is
attached. Mostly, haplology has been described in the literature as a process occurring word-

17
finally. However, there are other languages where haplology occurs at word onsets, and
where this involves person marking (e.g. the omission of ta- ‘3SGf’ in Arabic before verb base
initial ta-, cf. de Lacy 1999:1). It is possible that the sensitivity for reduplicated syllables in
Baure derives from the actual existence of productive reduplication in the language. The
difference from reduplication in Baure, however, is the place of deduplication at word onsets,
and the place of reduplication at the end of verb roots (or as full reduplication of the
complete root). Additionally, the increasing cases of deduplication are observed in a period
of language development where reduplication seems to have been losing productivity.
Subject marking on verbs and possessor marking on inalienable nouns are obligatory in
Baure (cf. Danielsen 2011). Before describing deduplication, the process of assimilation has to
be explained. If a word has an initial vowel, this vowel assimilates the vowel of the personal
proclitic, as in (63) and (64):

(63) ninisaw, pinisaw CV1= + V1 > CV1

ni=inisa-wo pi=inisa-wo
1SG=fish-COP 2SG=fish-COP
‘I am fishing, you are fishing’

(64) naro’inokow, paro’inokow CV1= + V2 > CV2

ni=aro’inoko-wo pi=aro’inoko-wo
1SG=be.sad-COP 2SG=be.sad-COP
‘I am sad, you are sad’

In example (63), the accidentally reduplicated syllable ni in ninisaw ‘I am fishing’ is also a hint
at the fact that the verb root does not begin with the consonant, but with the initial vowel i,
in which case deduplication does not occur.
Deduplication with the first person singular is found most frequently with any word
starting with the same initial syllable ni or even only with the nasal n. In the first case, it is
obligatory, whereas in the second case, the complete and the deduplicated forms co-exist. It
is a common characteristic of haplology to be optional (cf. Stemberger 1981). In the case of
total identity of the onset syllable, the deduplicated form could be analyzed as a surface form
with overlapping morphemes (cf. Haspelmath 1995:13), see example (65), whereas verbs with
the initial vowel i could only be reinterpreted as two partly overlapping morphemes (66):

(65) n i k (66) n i n i s a w

ni=nik n(i)=inisa-wo
1SG=eat 1SG=fish-COP
‘I ate.’ ‘I am fishing.’

Both verbs in (65) and (66) can be analyzed as containing the morpheme ni= ‘1SG’, and at the
same time part of another morpheme that overlaps phonologically in the surface form.
Another factor that supports the obligatory usage of the deduplicated form nik ‘I ate’ in
Baure, is the fact that ninik is the derived causative with the verb base -ini.k- ‘feed’, and thus
carries a different meaning (67):

18
(67) ninik
ni=i-nik
1SG=CAUS-eat
‘I feed (make eat).’

Other closely related Arawakan languages do not display the process of deduplication, see
example (68) of Paunaka with the equivalent verb -nik- ‘eat’ (and example (31) of Moxo
Ignaciano):

(68) kuina nisacha ninika Paunaka (own data)21

kuina ni=sach-a ni=nik-a
NEG 1SG=want-IRR 1SG=eat-IRR
‘I don’t want to eat.’

Deduplication of the onset of a verb with only an initial nasal n in the root occurs frequently,
but not obligatorily. See example (69), where ni= ‘1SG’ is marked overtly on the
verb -no.wana- (-no-wana; tell-DEP) ‘say good-bye’, and (70), where the same verb with the
initial nasal already includes the ‘1SG’ underlyingly:

(69) ninowanoekop . (70) wokow nowanoekow.

ni=nowana-i-ko-po wokow ni=nowana-i-ko-wo
1SG=say.good.bye-EXTS-ABS-PERF not.yet 1SG=say.good.bye-EXTS-ABS-COP
‘I said good-bye.’ ‘I didn’t say good-bye yet.’

In order to be able to also analyze example (70) as an occurrence as overlapping morphemes,

we must go back to example (64), which shows the vowel assimilation. The verb naro’inokow
‘I am sad’ displays an allophone of the personal proclitic ni= ‘2SG’, which is n=, when attached
to an initial vowel a or e (o does not exist as an initial vowel for bound morphemes). On the
basis of this fact, we can also analyze cases of apparent total dropping of the personal clitic in
(71) as overlapping morphemes:

(71) n o w a n o e k o w (72) n a r o ’i n o k o w

n(i)=nowana-i-ko-wo n(i)=aro’inoko-wo
1SG=say.good.bye-EXTS-ABS-COP 1SG=be.sad-COP
‘I am saying good-bye.’ ‘You are sad.’

21
The Paunaka language was investigated together with Lena Terhart in the Paunaka Documentation
Project, financed by the ELDP, SOAS, London. (Link to the archive: http://elar.soas.ac.uk/deposit/0104).

19
There are also many cases of deduplication in Baure with the second person singular pi= or
p= for bases with the identical initial syllable or consonant, as in (73) and (74), respectively:

(73) nanan pijikshap noiy … (74) pakomirachow

nanan pi=pijik-sh-pa noiy p(i)=pakomiracho-wo
later 2SG=pass-IRR-FUT there 2SG=meet-COP
‘Later when you pass by there ...’ ‘You are meeting.’

Cases of deduplication are also found with nouns, such as -wer ‘house’ and the first person
plural vi=.22 The noun is obligatorily possessed, thus it cannot be used as a free form. The
equivalent free form is pari ‘house’.

(75) wer
v(i)=wer
1PL=house
‘our house’, * ‘house’

The process of deduplication is increasingly regular in Baure (cf. Table 1), in particular with
the proclitics ni= ‘1SG’, pi= ‘2SG’, and vi= ‘1PL’. In general, it is still relatively rare, though,
because so few bases have the same or similar onsets as the clitic forms. There is not a single
verb, and only one derived inalienable noun -romon (-rom-no; chief-POSS) ‘chief’ that would
even start in the consonant r, so cases of deduplication with the clitics ro= ‘3SGm’ and ri=
‘3SGf’ cannot be expected to occur. There are a few verbs that could be effected by
deduplication with yi= ‘2PL’: -ya- ‘cry’, -yinich- ‘count’, -yok-/-yik- ‘sting’, -yon- ‘walk’, -yori-
‘be angry’, and -yoshpoek- ‘stumble’. Notwithstanding, there are no examples in the data.
One reason for this is also the relatively rare use of the 2PL, in general, and in elicitation,
speakers tend to be hypercorrect and would not eliminate the clitic syllable. We could have
expected deduplication here, though, since the initial glide causes this specific type of initial
reduplication (see REDV3b, Figure 7). The third person plural no= is similar to the first person
by sharing the initial nasal, but it does not show any deduplication in the data. The clitic no=
is also by far less frequent than ni= ‘1SG’. If both clitics caused the same effect on verbal or
nominal roots, this would lead to ambiguous forms, which may be a factor that holds against
deduplication with no= ‘3PL’.
All examples of deduplication are more or less optional, except for the first person
singular. Usually there is an alternative form with the repeated sequence (or consonant). In
comparison with historical data, deduplication can be argued to have increased in the more
currently spoken Baure language. Table 1 presents the most striking examples of
deduplication. The first column shows the bases or derived bases, the second column shows
with which personal clitic deduplication occurs, and the statements are divided into current
data collected by the author, data collected by the SIL linguists Baptista & Wallin in the 1950s
and 1960s (available on microfiches), and the Jesuit notes of Magio (1749) and Asis C. (1767).

22
The difference between labiodental (or even bilabial) fricative and a bilabial glide is probably not
entirely phonemic, but the sounds are somewhere on a continuum. The sound [v] is generally favoured
before i, whereas [w] is preferred before more open vowels like a. The graphemes v and w represent
the pronunciation of the consonants in tendency, but it does not exclude the possibility to find a
different pronunciation.

20
 verbal or personal Danielsen SIL Jesuits comments
nominal base proclitic 2003−2010 (1954-1968) (1749, 1767)
-nik- ‘eat’ 1SG always always no ninik is analyzed as
ni=i-nik
(1SG=CAUS-eat)
‘feed’
-nia- ‘chew’ 1SG always n.a. n.a.
-no- ‘tell’; 1SG sometimes ? ?
-nowana- ‘say
good-bye’;
-nopi- ‘tell
word’
-pak ‘aunt’ 2SG always n.a. ? not frequently
used anymore
-pakomirach- 2SG always ? n.a.
‘meet’
-per 2SG sometimes ? no but piper and not
‘domesticated *per (pi=pa=ro;
animal’ 2SG=give=3SGm)
-pijik- ‘pass’ 2SG always always n.a.
-pirik- ‘cut in 2SG sometimes ? no
halves’
-vek- ‘speak’ 1PL more often sometimes no in historical data
-vekori deduplicated vi= ‘1PL’ was
‘language’ than not described as abi-
or aba- (irrealis)
-wer ‘house’ 1PL almost ? n.a.
always
-woiyk- 1PL frequently no ? especially in
‘make’ Carmelito, but also
observed in
Joaquiniano
-wonoek- 1PL frequently no ?
‘send’
Table 1: Deduplication in Baure in a historical perspective23

In the Jesuit notes, there is no evidence for deduplication of this sort. In the SIL data there are
some examples (e.g. nik ‘I ate’ in Baptista & Wallin 1967:81), but the linguists have not
recognized this process explicitly. We can thus claim that deduplication occurs increasingly in
the more current data of the Baure language. How productive the process is today, can be
perceived with the loan word -velach- ‘hold the death watch’ (> Sp. velar). This recently or

23
The abbreviation n.a. means that there is no account of the root at all, whereas ? means that the root
is present, but not with the specific personal form, so that no statement can be made.

21
borrowed item undergoes the expected process of deduplication with the first person plural
in the data:

(76) velachpa noiy Yermovian-ye.

vi=velach-pa noiy Yermo-vian-ye
1PL=death.wake-INTL there Guillermo-neighbour-LOC
‘We are going for the death watch at our neighbour’s Guillermo.’

It remains yet to be seen whether other Arawakan languages show the same process.
Paunaka, for example, a closely related Bolivian Southern Arawakan language, does not seem
to have any deduplication, at least not involving person markers, as already shown in (68).
The only description of haplology in an Arawakan language is that of Baniva in Álvarez &
Socorro (2002), where derived possessed nouns originally ending in the sequence -C1V
cannot have a possessive suffix -C1e with the same consonant attached: *XnV-ne, * XtV-te,
*XlV-le, and *XrV-re. In Baure, though, the only derivational possessive suffix -no is also
attached to noun final -no: in ‘water’ and -inon (ino-no; water-POSS) ‘water (bound form)’. It is
possible, however, that there was a process of word final haplology in the derivational
process of creating absolute (free/unpossessed) nouns in Baure. Many bound nouns ending
in the sequence -ki, like e.g. -ipaniki ‘belt (bound form)’ have zero derivation for an
unpossessed form in Baure − ipaniki ‘belt (free form), instead of adding the absolute
suffix -ko (*ipanoki.k). Furthermore, there is the restriction of not attaching two personal
enclitics with the consonant r to a ditransitive verb in Baure (*=ro=ro ‘3SGm=3SGm’, *=ro=ri
‘3SGm=3SGf’ etc.), as well as in other Arawakan languages (compare Shaver 1996:58 on
Nomatsiguenga).
Productive deduplication in Baure always involves the person markers. Therefore, the
numeral po-CLF-sh ‘one’ is the basis of many examples of non-prevented repetition of the
same syllable, such as (77):

(77) poposh, popokish

po-po-sh po-poki-sh
one-CLF:multitude-one one-CLF:hammock-one
‘one (fish), one hammock’

Apart from the presented examples, deduplication is not observed word-finally, even though
widespread homophony could create many possible cases. Deduplication does not even
occur with accidental sequences of koko, which is reminiscent of and could be misinterpreted
as -koko ‘RECP’ (78).

(78) poekish korakok, nikorak, korakokowor

po-iki-sh korako-ko ni=korak korako-ko-wo=ro
one-CLF:container-one net-ABS 1SG=net net-ABS-COP=3SGm
‘one net, my net, it is a net’

Deduplication can actually also lead to ambiguity with a reduplicated root, as in (3) with the
verb -pi.poe.k- ‘walk barefoot’. Example (79) gives the verb with the simplex root24, and (80)

24
There is no other example of this verb with 2SG than (81) in the data.

22
with a reduplicated root -pi~pi.poe.k-.

(79) vipipoek, nipipoek

vi=pi-poe-ko ni=pi-poe-ko
1PL=walk.barefoot-down-ABS 1SG=walk.barefoot-down-ABS
‘We are walking barefoot, I am walking barefoot (lit. on the ground).’

(80) kew pejkopa tech vipipipoek.

kew pi=ejko-pa tech vi=pi~pi-poe-ko
go 2SG=clean-INTL DEM2m 1PL=walk.barefoot~walk.barefoot-down-ABS
‘Go and clean this (ground that) we step barefoot on.’

There are thus two possibilities to segment the verb in (81), either with person marking pi=
‘2SG’ (a) and a simplex root; or with a reduplicated root and eliminated person marking (b):

(81)a. pipipoekikoe’ (81) b. pipipoekikoe’

pi=pi-poe-k(o)-ikoe’ or pi=pi~pi-poe-k(o)-ikoe’
2SG=walk.barefoot-down-ABS-EMPH 2SG=walk.barefoot~walk.baref.-down-ABS-EMPH
‘You are walking barefoot (lit. on the ground).’

The presence of emphatic marking in (81) may hint at an intensified verb form, which could
either be only marked by -ikoe’ ‘EMPH’, or it could be reduplicated in addition (compare
example (53) from above), which means that analysis (81)b should be favoured.

6. Conclusion
Summing up the findings in Baure, we can note that there are three major characteristics
related to reduplication: first of all there is a great number of inherently reduplicated nouns
and verbs in the lexicon; secondly, reduplication is a productive process of stative verbs,
adjectives, and some active verbs, and other parts of speech, even though productivity seems
to be decreasing; thirdly, the increasing spread of deduplication in Baure shows the sensitivity
of the speakers to repeated syllable sequences, and this is finally a hint at the markedness of
the category of reduplication.
The structural difference of lexicalized reduplication patterns and productive reduplication
is not reflected by the formal reduplication types, as was shown by comparing lexical nominal
reduplication patterns (REDN1 − REDN3, Figure 2) and lexical verbal reduplication (REDV1 −
REDV3a, Figures 4 − 6) to productive reduplication types (RED1 − RED4, Figure 8). One small
difference is possibly that lexical verbal reduplication pattern REDV2, where a disyllabic part
of the root is reduplicated is more commonly found in the lexicon than as a productive type
(RED2). The overall generalization is that reduplication may involve the complete root,
monosyllabic or disyllabic, or be a monosyllabic or disyllabic part of the root. Reduplication is
phonotactically progressive and occurs at the end of the root. The appearance of the output
form may be less transparent, due to the attachment of root and stem affixes, which
altogether constitute the base, the actual meaning unit. The most commonly observed formal
reduplication type is (CV) CVCV~CV (RED3a), in particular with the consonant r in the final
syllable, which then even allows for triplication (RED3b). Two more specific types were
detected: REDN4 is the repetition of a consonant, which is also marked in Arawakan

23
languages, as was shown by the productive deduplication of accidental similar syllable
sequences. REDV3b showed that in two cases reduplication appeared to be regressive where
the verb root started in the glide y.
The functions of reduplication are onomatopoeia, word formation, and the marking of
intensity and speed. Nouns, like verbs have relatively high percentages of onomatopoeic
reduplicated forms, referring to animal names and their sounds, or to intrinsically iterative
events. In word formation processes, we find two functions of reduplication: either a syllable
is repeated because of a minimal syllable weight requirement of a root, or a noun or
adjective may be derived from a verb root by means of reduplicating a syllable. In one case
the temporal adverb nanan ‘later’ has been derived from the basic locative adverb nan ‘there’
by reduplication.
It is possible that full reduplication of a root once had different semantics from those of
partial reduplication. In such a scenario, full reduplication may have indicated iterativity and
repetition of an action, applied mainly to active verbs (as found in many lexicalized forms),
and partial reduplication, indicating the augmentation of a state. This hypothesis is only a
tentative idea on the basis of (mainly) recent Baure data, but we could possibly shed more
light upon this question if we compare our findings to the reduplication systems of other
Arawakan languages. Some interesting points were already made, which aim at the
illustration of the usefulness of such comparative work: the most common reduplication
patterns in Baure can also be detected in inherent reduplications of the Iñapari lexicon (cf.
Section 4.1). The consonant r frequently occurs in reduplicated syllables in other Arawakan
languages. Accidentally repeated similar syllables (focus on consonantal identity) tend to be
eliminated (deduplication), not only in Baure, but also in Baniva (Álvarez and Socorro, 2002)
and possibly in Campan Arawakan languages (e.g. Nomatsiguenga in Shaver, 1996).
Apart from lexical roots, certain affixes can also be reduplicated: augmentative and
diminutive suffixes, and the stem closing verbal suffix -ko, which gave rise to the complex
morpheme -koko for reciprocal marking. A reduplicated suffix is the source of the reciprocal
suffix in (almost?) all Arawakan languages. Reciprocal is therefore constructed as a specific
kind of repeated event with changed direction (or changed actors and undergoers), where
the reduplication is iconic and stands for these events.
Reduplication can still be considered to be a productive process in Baure (Section 4, Figure
8), but this morphological process is possibly blocked by a number of alternative morphemes,
such as repetitive -poreiy, attached for repeated action. However, whereas reduplication
seems to have lost productivity in the Baure language’s history, a reverse process occurred
increasingly: deduplication of personal proclitics. Deduplication cannot be observed with all
personal clitics, and it is still to a great extent optional, but it is indeed very productive (see
Section 5 and Table 1). This suggests that Baure is moving towards being a deduplicating
rather than a reduplicating language, and it coincides with the general observation in the
past decades of vowel and syllable loss, on the phonological side, and to the tendency of
becoming more isolating than synthetic, on the morphological side. This possibly
distinguishes Baure from its closest relatives Moxo (Ignaciano and Trinitario) and Paunaka,
which may show a tendency to become less synthetic, but they do not seem to display
deduplication of word onsets.

24
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Abbreviations

3 = third person f = feminine

ABS = absolute morpheme FUT = future (same as intentional)
APRX = approximative HORT = hortative
ART = article INTL = intentional, directional away
ATTR = attributive from speaker
AUG = augmentative IRR = irrealis
BEN = benefactive LK = linker
C = consonant LOC = locative
CAUS = causative m = masculine
CLF = classifier NMLZ = nominalizer
COME = directional: towards (“come”) O = object
COP = copula affix (progressive & (P) = patient
perfect effects, depending on PASS = passive
lexical aspect and context) PERF = perfective
COS = change of state; focus on PL = plural
changed state PTCP = participle
DEM = demonstrative (three different QUOT = quotative
ones:1,2,3) (R) = recipient
DEP = departitive RED = reduplication
DER = derivational suffix RECP = reciprocal
DIM = diminutive RED1 = productive reduplication
DISTR = distributive pattern 1
EMPH = emphatic marker REDN1 = lexicalized nominal
EXCLA = exclamative reduplication pattern 1
EXTS = extension applicative (extends REDV1 = lexicalized verbal
the event as durative, or the reduplication pattern 1
goal towards an oblique REFL = reflexive
object) REP = repetitive

26
S = subject WTE = weather/time/environment
SBJV = subjective morpheme
SG = singular X = any phoneme
TH = thematic suffix - = affixation
TRNS = transitivizer = = cliticization
V = vowel (simplex or complex) xx.yy = possibly segmentable, but
used as a unit

i
I apologize to not have properly taken into account the very important publication by Goodwin
Gómez & van der Voort 2014, even though their work has motivated me to write this article. And it
was written before the publication of this book. Now, revising only slightly, I do not have the book
available, nor do I have the time to consider it well. One basic difference is that I use the term
“reduplication” in a much broader sense, including repetition, which goes against many common
theoretical approaches. I am not making any strong point here. I only thought that I can also compare
what shows similar structures. Feel free to apply different terminology to repetition and reduplication,
but there is no need to argue against me here. I tried to be descriptive, and I still hope that this article
with its presented data serves for some comparative work to other linguists.

27