Reduplicating Nouns and Verbs in Malay a Conceptual Analysis

This book focuses on reduplication of nouns and verbs in Malay. Conceptual boundary is used as the necessary condition for reduplication to operate on the grammatical categories of noun and verb. Syntactic and semantic tests on the data derived from Malay newspapers, radio programme and popular magazine show that noun reduplication is more common than verb reduplication in Malay discourse. In this analysis, plural reference of Malay noun reduplication is differentiated from that of singular noun. The pragmatics of noun reduplication is further identified with the concepts of definiteness and specificity in reference. The analysis shows that definiteness of a noun reference varies across expression types. Answers are provided on why reduplicated nouns cannot appear in some expressions. Malay verbs are examined in terms of internal temporal make-up, known as aspect. Perfective aspect in bounded verbs becomes the operating factor in verb reduplication. By invoking profile determinant in Cognitive Grammar, affixes are recognised as devices underpinning the reduplication of imperfective Malay verbs.

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