Reduplication is the process of repeating a word or part of it to express some grammatical function, plurality for example. It is used in some language families' grammar, most notably in Malayo-Polynesian where it forms plurals:
Bahasa Malay rumah, house, rumah-rumah, houses.
Hawaiian has the important example of Wiki-wiki!
Nama uses reduplication to increase the force of a verb:
Go, look, Go-go, examine with attention.
Indo-European languages formerly used reduplication to form a number of verb forms, especially in the preterite or perfect tenses. In the older Indo-European languages, many such verbs survive:
- spondeo, spopondi (Latin, "I vow, I vowed")
- λειπω, λελοιπα (Greek, "I am missing, I was missing")
- haitan, haihait (Gothic, "to name, I named")
See also: augment
