Bonus 49: The episode-episode (Reduplication)

Reminds me of a Community Channel video called "Does he LIKE-LIKE me?" https://youtu.be/Wv50TLkAYfw

Scout

Just like a few other folks have said, I would understand “I didn’t go TO to Montreal” as meaning either “I drove through it on a road trip” or “I had a layover there,” but that wouldn’t be my first choice on how to phrase it, myself. It feels a little awkward, but still comprehensible. If someone asked me “Have you been to Montreal?”, but I had only changed planes there, I would be much more likely to say “I haven’t BEEN THERE been there.” Oddly enough, reduplicating the whole phrase “been there” feels a lot more natural than just reduplicating “been,” though I would still understand what someone meant if they just reduplicated “been.” Also, I’ve hit semantic satiation for “been” now, lol.

The m- is the reduplicative bit, but I mostly heard the language feature used by Russian speakers with Bashkir or Tatar backgrounds.

It's just about time here in the Northern hemisphere for my favourite Bashkir/central Asian reduplication: shashlik-mashlik! I'd characterise it as affectionate diminutive for a nice little bit of barbecue and related food.

Whoa, this thing that I do when I talk to my dog actually has a name! (Time for a walky-walk! Want a snacky-snack? Let's go upstairs and take a nappy-nap. Would you like a little bitey-bite? Here's some yummy-yums for you! Ready for sleepy-sleeps? Come on, puppy-pups! ... His English is coming along nicely.)

I was also going to say that 'I went to Montreal but not TO to Montreal' means that I was there physically, but I didn't leave the airport/train station etc!

Awesome episode! For me, “I’m going to Montreal but I’m not going TO to Montreal” would mean that I have a layover but I’m not visiting the city. For me, reduplicating the name of the city would contrast going to some bland suburb or something rather than some authentic or quintessential part of the city.

I feel like I've heard "THE The Book" used to differentiate the Bible from other books. It's been so long since I left the church I'm not sure if that's a real memory tho.

Jonathan Abramsohn

Hebrew has some great reduplication: Full reduplication to indicate 'one at a time' e.g. אחד אחד /exad exad/ "one by one"; ילד ילד /jeled jeled/ "one child at a time" Partial reduplication, usually for diminutives (or less intense qualities) E.g. סגול /sagol/ "purple" - סגלגל /sgalgal/ "light purple (or purplish)"; חמוץ /xamuts/ "sour" - חמצמץ /xamatsmats/ "tangy, a little sour"; כלב /kelev/ "dog" - כלבלב /klavlav/ "puppy, doggo" The full reduplication pattern for "one thing at a time, one by one" is fully productive, as far as I can tell, whereas the partial reduplication diminutive is much more restricted

Jonathan Abramsohn

Great episode! Funnily enough, it's titled "The episode-episode", even though it's not an episode-episode. It's a bonus-episode 😅

Speaking of diminutive: German adds -chen to nouns - as in Gretchen (~ little Grete, little Margaret)