APRECIACIONES FINALES

Duplicated nouns and measures differ from the above duplicated adjectives. The reduplication is not to achieve intensification or prominence but to signal the plural. They do not fall into the same category of adjective reduplications which use word prolongation to achieve prominence. This is reflected in their rhythm. They do not normally use staccato rhythm but are the same as normal compounds (see discussion in 3.3.2.4.) Noun reduplication is very rare, as in /jim4 j^n4/ (person-person - everybody) or, /log1 lor)1 la:3 la:3/

(hole-hole-gap-gap - every hole and gap). Measure reduplication is more common, as in

3 3

/ko: ko: / (measure-measure - everyone). The possibility for syllable lengthening in disyllabic noun and measure reduplications is different from adjective reduplication as discussed above: either syllable can take longer duration in an utterance. For XXYY tetrasyllable noun reduplications, lengthening either the first or the second syllable twice as long as the other is considered the most common pattern.

Reduplicated verbs and partial reduplication of nouns or verbs have an intensificatory effect as they are not used as nouns. Adverbs are also intensified by reduplication. Tetrasyllable

2 2 6 6

verbs such as /j^m jem cek qek / (eat-eat-drink-drink - eating and drinking frequently) and

3 3 h 3 h 3

tetrasyllabic adverbs such as /fa:j fa:j tp ej ip ej / (quickly-quickly-neatly-neatly) also have the same rhythmic patterns as the XXYY tetrasyllabic adjective reduplications. Rhythmic patterns in partial reduplications of nouns, verbs and adverbs, e.g., /mi:n6 hog4 mi:n6 lok6/

(face-red-face-green - be flushed or be pale), /ka:w2 fog1 ka:w2 jy:5/ (stir-wind-stir-rain - make

h 4 1 h 4 1

trouble) and /t og low t og pow / (together-stir-together-boil - work closely), respectively, are the same as those in XYXZ partial reduplications of adjectives.

3.3.2.2, Couplings

Recall that the constituents of a syllable are onset, rhyme and tone, as discussed in chapter one. Reduplication is not limited to whole syllables, it can involve any part of the constituents of a syllable. I call this type of reduplication - coupling, or rhyme coupling. For example, /la:w2 ka:w6/ (untidy) and /la:t6 tha:t3/ (dirty), are rhyme reduplicated; /la:w4 ca:w4/

3 3 5

(careless) and /ta:p <?a:p / (which has to follow the negation /mow / to mean: 'careless') are

both rhyme and tone duplicated. Onset reduplications are rare, as in /b:g1 tej2/ (angry with

no reason). Most examples of these reduplications are purely colloquial, they may not even have a proper written form. If one really wants to write these words down, one can either make up a new character with the same phonetic component to show the pronunciation, or just simply draw a square " [] " to indicate an unwritten syllable (even Rao et al use these

methods in their "Dictionary of Cantonese Colloquialisms" (1982)). At least for this reason, they are not entries in dictionaries (except Rao et al 1982 which give phonemic transcriptions) and it is very difficult to trace their etymology. Without enough evidence, it is very difficult to draw a clear line between a disyllabic morpheme and a root word combined with a rhythmic suffix, or a compound. Whatever they are, their reduplications in onset, or in rhyme or in both rhyme and tone constitute a disyllabic rhyme-coupling word. Note that almost all these rhyme coupling words are adjectives and related to a derogatory meaning. As in the examples above, none of the syllables can be singled out to be a morpheme, they are unlikely to fail outside the category of disyllabic morphemes. Cantonese words are basically monosyllabic, the very fact of coupling in disyllabic words has a prominence effect. The most common rhythmic pattern of the rhyme couplings is staccato (as illustrated in i below), or, lengthening the first syllable (as illustrated in iii below). The couplings can also be reduplicated, such as /la:t6 la:t6 tha:t3 tha:t3/ (very dirty) - derived from /la:t6 tha:t3/ (dirty).

The rhythmic patterns are the same as the XXYY tetrasyllabic adjective reduplications discussed above. The common rhythmic patterns are:

XY XXYY

. I ! 1 ! ! !

Rhyme coupling in disyllabics is a special type of prolonging, as is rhyme coupling in trisyllabics and tetrasyllables. The form of coupling in trisyllables and tetrasyllables differs from that in disyllabics. In trisyllabics and tetrasyllables, there are only one or two root words and the rest are rhythmic suffixes. The rhyme coupling is the reduplication of the rhyme in the rhythmic suffixes, not the reduplication of the rhyme in the root word. The suffixes are only added to prolong the root word. For example, in the tetrasyllables /wu:1 Ii:1 ta:n1 tow1/

1/ 4 1 5 h 5

(dirty-rhythmic suffixes) and /wu: Ii: ma: ta a: / (dirty-rhythmic suffixes), the first syllables are root words, the second syllables are common rhythmic infixes, the last two syllables are

1 1

the rhyme coupling suffixes - /ta:n tow / (rhythmic suffixes) duplicates the onset and the

tone whereas /ma:5 tpha:5/ (rhythmic suffixes) duplicates the rhyme and the tone.

6 1 1 6 6 6

In the trisyllabics /tca:p: pci) teg / (miscellaneous-rhythmic suffixes) and /ha:m pa:g la:g / (all-rhythmic suffixes), the first syllables are root words, the last two syllables are the rhyme coupling suffixes. Their root word usually receives longer duration. The second syllables of the trisyllabics are particularly short, they are compressed into a nasalised /pe1/ or /pa:6/ after the particularly lengthened root word and they are almost clustered with the last syllable into a /pi-/ cluster. Again, the very fact of coupling in trisyllabics and in tetrasyllables has a prominence effect by prolonging a word with added syllables, as in disyllabics. The common rhythmic patterns are:

X (liYZ) X(YZ)

t i l l

i. _____________ _________