The Study of Total Reduplication Process in Persian Language: A Research Based on Morphological Doubling Theory

Reduplication is a morphological process that is one of the most debatable linguistic issues being studied by various languages and many theories in different ways. Reduplication structurally divided into two parts: total reduplication and partial reduplication. In total reduplication a construction (a word or syntactic phrase) is repeated, but in partial reduplication some part of base is repeated (Shaghaghi, 2000:525,528).The current study tries to deal with total reduplication in Persian language based on Heidarpour’s classifying (2011) which included three categories: total improper reduplication, total proper reduplication and total echoic reduplication in terms of morphological reduplication theory. The research methodology is descriptive and analytical. The aim of this study is to determine whether the morphological reduplication is more useful and efficient or phonological copying and to explore how extent total reduplication is explainable based on patterns of morphological reduplication theory. With respect to the previous studies, it is assumed that total reduplication is analyzable based on morphological reduplication theory. There are two approaches in reduplication process: phonological copying and morphological reduplication. The first was defined by Marantz (1982) that essentially is a phonological process, the second is defined by Inkelas and zoll (2005), the morphological approach, based on the theory semantic identity is more important than phonological similarity. Inkelas and zoll’s morphological reduplication model included “the collection of input semantic features and a kind of semantic adjunct” (p.6-7). By emphasizing semantic identity, they predict existence of empty morph (semantically), melodic overwriting and tier replacement that have semantic identity (p.36-46).
Total reduplication divided into: improper, proper, and echoic. In total improper reduplication, there is phonological identity relation among reduplicating factors and belonging to different categories. In total proper reduplication, besides two reduplicated bases, there is a grammatical morph between two sisters’ factors that placed between two bases or after the second base. With regard to the placement of grammatical morph, this process is divided into two parts: medial and ending. Each of them has different kinds and various structures. In total echoic reduplication, the reduplicated part has the same rhythm as base’s, but is meaningless. In this pattern, changing happening initial consonant or vowels of base is doubling in reduplicated part. (Heidarpour, 2011:145)
The results suggest that kinds of total reduplication are describable in terms of morphological reduplication theory, whereas partial reduplication with suffix and prefix is analytical by phonological copying; therefor, morphological reduplication theory is more efficient than phonological copying theory. Findings of the study help us find out a universal view about reduplication process to classify world languages by linguistic typology.