Reduplication in Tupi-Guarani languages: going into opposite directions

The aim of this paper is to investigate verbal stem reduplication in several Tupi-Guarani languages. The study reports mostly on Emerillon, for which the author collected field data in French Guiana, but also on other TupiGuarani languages: Wayampi of French Guiana (Grenand 1980, 1989; Ganozzi, p.c.), Tupinamba (Rodrigues A. 1953), Kamaiura (Seki 2000), Brazilian Wayampi (Jensen 1989), Anambé (Julião, p.c.), Urubu-Kaapor (Kakumasu 1984), Chiriguano (Shuchard 1979) and Guarayo (Hoeller 1932) 2 . Tupi-Guarani languages in general display both a monosyllabic and a disyllabic reduplication pattern. However, while in other Tupi-Guarani languages the patterns copy the final syllables of the stem, in Emerillon the reduplication clearly affects the initial syllables. Let us note that up to now, general descriptions of Tupi-Guarani languages rarely included Emerillon data due to insufficient description. The reduplication process to be studied is a productive morphological process with the verb stem. Reduplication is also used with other parts of speech (like minor predicative categories, nouns or adverbs), but is really productive and frequent with verbs and ideophones only. Verbal reduplication is an expressive means for different nuances of aspect. Aspectual distinctions are otherwise expressed by verbal suffixes and particles in Tupi-Guarani languages.