määnmään

Määnmään is a term used in linguistic typology to illustrate full reduplication, the process by which a base morpheme is repeated to form a new word. In many languages, reduplication can indicate iterative aspect, plurality, or emphasis; määnmään is a stylized example selected for phonotactic compatibility with Finnic-language patterns.

The form consists of the base syllable mään repeated identically, yielding a two-syllable word with equal stress. The example is non-lexical and intended for analytic illustration rather than a reported lexical item. As a pedagogical device, it helps demonstrate how complete reduplication functions within a word, without committing to a specific real-word meaning.

In linguistic analysis, määnmään is treated as a hypothetical verb with possible readings such as “to do again” or “to intensify the action.” When used in descriptions, it clarifies how full reduplication can interact with mood, tense, and aspect markers in synthetic languages, and how semantic scope can be affected by phonological form.

Usage and caveats: määnmään is not attested as a real, independently used word in established Finnic languages; it is widely used in textbooks, grammars, and typology papers as a controlled example to illustrate reduplication phenomena.

See also: reduplication, iterative aspect, Finnish phonology, language typology.