reduplikatsiya

Reduplicatsiya, often transliterated as reduplikatsiya, is a linguistic process in which all or part of a word is repeated immediately after itself, sometimes with small phonological modification. The term covers a wide range of repetition phenomena found in many languages and can serve various grammatical or semantic functions. Reduplications may be productive as a morphological device or occur as fixed, lexicalized forms.

There are several main types. Full reduplication repeats the entire base word or stem, and partial reduplication repeats only a portion, such as a syllable or an initial segment. Exact reduplication repeats the identical material, whereas altered or rhyming reduplication may involve mild phonetic changes to the repeated part. Some languages use reduplication to create new words, while others use it to express grammatical categories.

Functions of reduplikatsiya are diverse. It can mark plurality or repetition on nouns, indicate habitual or iterative aspect on verbs, express intensity or emphasis, or create affectionate or affective terms. Its distribution is widespread across language families, with notable productivity in some Austronesian languages (for example, Indonesian and Malay) and in other linguistic areas as a common morphological or lexical device.

In linguistic description and typology, reduplicatsiya illustrates how repetition shapes meaning and word structure. It highlights interactions between morphology, phonology, and semantics and remains a central topic in studies of language diversity and historical change.