Reduplication in spoken and signed language

Abstract In this chapter, the phenomenon of iconicity is described for the morphological process of reduplication as it is found across the modalities of spoken and signed languages, as well as with the special word-class of ideophones. An overview of research into the iconic nature of reduplicative constructions is given, both historical, with a focus on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and contemporary, covering the past forty years or so. The typologically recurring broad functions of reduplicated words in the domains of plurality, intensity, diminution, and word-class change are presented in light of the principle of iconicity in reduplication. Regarding morphology more generally, these iconic meanings are shown to motivate a certain derivational propensity of the process under scrutiny.