Discontiguous Reduplication

McCarthy& Prince () outline a theory of reduplication in which segments in the reduplicant stand in correspondence with segments in the base. Discontiguous partial reduplication patterns, in which a string of segments in the reduplicant corresponds with a discontiguous string of segments in the base, have been observed in various languages in the Austronesian and Austroasiatic language families. Several such patterns show a preference for the anchoring of the segments at both edges of the base, as in the Semai example pajañ ➫ pñ-pajañ “appearance of being disheveled.” In this paper, I propose that edge-anchoring discontiguous reduplicants arise as a result of fundamental constraints on phonological properties of particular languages, arguing for what I call the Reduction Model of discontiguous reduplication, formulated in Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky /). Under this model, discontiguous reduplicants are shown to be derivable frommaximal prosodic constituents, which are reduced in size due to language-particular phonological requirements on sonority sequencing, syllable structure, prosodic correspondence, and positional faithfulness. I show how the interaction of these constraints with C-BR and constraints on reduplicant size yields discontiguous base-reduplicant correspondence strings in three languages: Type V/VI reduplication in Nakanai, Expressive reduplication in Semai, and Type III reduplication in Ulu Muar Malay. Furthermore, I argue that reference to the right edge of the base is not necessary to yield right-anchoring in any of these patterns (contrary to Hendricks  and Nelson ), but that right-anchoring falls out from the same language-particular phonological requirements that limit reduplicant size. 1 Reduplication and Optimality Theory 1.1 Reduplication and Prosodic Templates Reduplicative morphemes are found inmany languages throughout the world. Unlike regular morAcknowledgments: I am greatly indebted to Junko Ito and Jaye Padgett, who inspired me to pursue work on discontiguous reduplication very early in my graduate career at UC Santa Cruz and provided valuable guidance throughout the duration of this project. I also thank Sandy Chung for her many helpful comments and suggestions which have made this paper more robust. I am grateful to the participants of the Winter  research seminar and the audience at LASC , especially to Jesse Kirchner and Noah Constant, on whom some of the nicer elements of each analysis should be blamed. Pete Alrenga should also be thanked for pointing out a problem that took me two months to solve. Finally, I can’t thank Armin Mester enough for all of his feedback on each aspect of this paper, his friendly criticism, and his endless enthusiasm for my work.