Appendix talk:Vietnamese reduplication

-ung

@PhanAnh123, aren't não nùng and nao núng examples of -ung reduplication? The page currently says, "The roots seem to all have tone B2 or D2 (nặng)." MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 14:59, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

You're right that não nùng seems to fit there in the current section of -ung reduplication with A tones; nao núng seems like a different -ung reduplication pattern, this time with B tones, but I can't think any other example, so the núng might be a fossilized morpheme. PhanAnh123 (talk) 15:37, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

You’re right, nao núng doesn’t fit. MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 00:34, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

“Phonemic” reduplication

@PhanAnh123, do you know if there’s any standard terminology for the là lạ type reduplication? We currently call it “phonemic” reduplication, but it seems that was the result of edit warring between Fumiko Take and Wyang, and is not ideal I think. (They just made it up between the two of them it seems, and no-one uses the term but us.) MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 03:34, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Nope, because there's barely any research on Vietnamese reduplication; even taking out seemingly "recent" pattern like -ung that I've literally never seen any acknowledgement (much less research), the nonproductive patterns are also almost never properly categorized (I think I read one paper that mentions -ang and -âp reduplications), but just dumped into the generic từ láy. That type of diminutive full reduplication that produces là lạ is one of the few that are ever properly discussed (alongside -iếc and -a reduplication on disyllabic roots), but I don't remember stumbling across any fixed term for it. PhanAnh123 (talk) 04:48, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Okay, then we’ll make something up? Hồ Ngọc Đức’s Vietnamese-French dictionary calls it “atténué”, so “attenuated reduplication”? Or “diminutive reduplication”? just “diminutive”? You have any suggestions? MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 01:28, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Something like "diminutive reduplication" is probably fine I think, but you may also want input from other editors. PhanAnh123 (talk) 05:33, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Duchuyfootball, Mxn, you have any opinions? (Is there anyone else active nowadays? Apart from Fumiko Take, of course.) MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 02:34, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

I’m no expert, but either option would seem more intuitive to me than the semantically empty “phonemic”. Minh Nguyễn ^💬 04:24, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm no expert neither. But here's my theory.

The first one is complete reduplications (hay hay). No tones or syllables modification needed as the phrase is easily spoken enough.

The second one is reduplications with tone modifications. For this part I would suggest taking a look at how Chinese call their reduplicated words. For example: "好好" (theoretically read: hao3hao3, but in reality read hao2hao3), a reduplication, but with a tone modified to facilitate easier speech. In my opinion, "là lạ" could very well have started as "lạ lạ", but with the first tone modified to produce the prevalent word nowadays.

The third one is reduplications with syllablic modification. I can't think of any example to begin with, so I'll skip this. But perhaps it was done for easier speech, or because of miscommunication.

The final one: total reduplications = complete reduplication + tone modification + syllablic modification/miscommunication. For example, Vietnamese reduplications with modified syllables "biêng biếc" might be the result of a long process of complete reduplication (biếc biếc) + tone modification (biệc/biềc biếc?) + miscommunication (eg. somebody said "-iếc -iếc" and a child heard "-iêc -iếc" -> "-iêng -iếc".

Now there you go, a lot of "terminology" to choose from. Otherwise, from my point of view, Vietnamese is quite poorly researched so the correct terminology might not exist for the next few decades. Duchuyfootball (talk) 14:27, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

But then again there's a recurring pattern of "toneless" + "toneful". Biêng biếc, xam xám, ngoan ngoãn,... It's so difficult to pinpoint down to a correct terminology without linguistic expertise. Duchuyfootball (talk) 14:30, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

In Mandarin, tone 3 turns into tone 2 before another tone 3. That's sandhi; nothing to do with reduplication and the same doesn't exist in Vietnamese. (Maybe it once did and it could've been the source of the "syllabic modification", I don't know.) MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 01:41, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for that correction. What I'm concerned about is whether the type of duplications that Vietnamese has is exclusive or is there other languages with the same features?

Again, from my point of view, Vietnamese is quite poorly researched. There is a huge chance words that we intuitively thought as duplications are, in fact, not. For example: "lạnh lẽo". Looks like a duplication, but are we so sure? According to a post that I saw on Facebook, Kinh people (an ethnic group of Vietnam) living in Chinese territories call winter "mùa lẽo". That raises a question: although it is extinct now, could "lẽo" have originally been a word of its own (a local term?), whose meaning was equivalent to "lạnh"? And so, "lạnh lẽo" could very well be a compound word, not reduplication. People are generically grouping words like these into the "duplication" category, as we have no evidence for the otherwise. The same can be true for other "duplication". They could have started as a combination of two words with the same meaning and close pronunciation, but throughout the course of history, one (or both) componential words fell out of use, leaving what we are using nowadays, but barely understand.

So, whatever terminology you are going to use, be very careful that it would only be a hypothesis. Duchuyfootball (talk) 13:18, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

The reason why I recommended looking into Chinese is because of the fact that the Vietnamese vocabulary and pronunciation is heavily affected by the import of Chinese throughout the history. Although Vietnamese duplication seems original and local, who says that it hadn't been affected by Chinese (or any neighboring languages)? Duchuyfootball (talk) 13:38, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Apart from the duplications with systematic rules, ones with "syllabic changes" (such as "sung sướng", "não nùng", "nao núng", "vui vẻ") are so unsystematic and meaningless when divided into morphemes, so much so that they can very well fall into the type of compound I've just hypothesized above. Since there is no research done, I think we'd better leave them at that "possibly a duplication"? Maybe someone can write a whole page documenting the features of the "ideal terminology" and some thesis on why that terminology can be applied to that one word, if they have the knowledge (which I highly doubt). Until more light is shed on the Vietnamese language, maybe we should just leave these words in the gray area, rather than trying to frame them into something and finding out later that it has been wrong for the whole time. Duchuyfootball (talk) 13:30, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

For lạnh lẽo and the example that you pointed out to, do you know about rebracketing? It seems to be that it's what probably happened here. It's also possible that some patterns originated from fossilized compounds that were then reanalyzed as reduplication, then applied to create more reduplicatives: if lẽo is indeed a fosillized morpheme like you suggested, it's then possible that -eo reduplication originated from such analogy; maybe one day we will have -oc reduplication derived from the fossilized compound máy móc. We know that native speakers need not to understand the mechanism for phonological and morphological phenomenons before actually applying the rules, but instead they just do, that's stuff why allophony, allomorph, extensive tone sandhi, vowel harmony, etc, exist.

For vui vẻ at least, it seems like straightforward -e (tone C) reduplication to me, nowhere near as ambiguous as văn vẻ for example. Somewhat fortunate for us, sạch sẽ with the same pattern has at least one exact known cognate: Mày pʰɽɛk⁴ pʰɽɛ⁴ attested in (Babaev & Samarina, 2018). What we are doing is exactly "shedding more light" on the topic of reduplication, because unfortunately, Vietnamese linguists are often quite slow on this kind of research, with the exception of the most blatant and obvious of patterns like -iếc reduplication, which have been explored. PhanAnh123 (talk) 15:31, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

I had no idea about rebracketing. It is a sound argument to the use of the word "mùa lẽo". I'm still curious about why they would not use "lạnh" (which can be pronounced more easily). Let's end my discussion now since there is nothing more I can help. Duchuyfootball (talk) 10:07, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the (long ☺) discussion. I went with “diminutive reduplication”. MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 03:15, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

AABB reduplication

There exist some words constructed by AABB reduplication (in en.wikt we have hùng hùng hổ hổ, dập dập dềnh dềnh, gồ gồ ghề ghề). Do y’all think those should be put in the headword line (as they are now)? Or is this more like an exceptional type to be put among the derived terms? @PhanAnh123, Mxn, Duchuyfootball. MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 02:42, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Derived terms as there is hardly any change in meaning (if there is, mostly the expressiveness). Duchuyfootball (talk) 09:57, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

If there’s hardly any change in meaning and the form is quite predictable, would it not be better to leave them in the headword line (where they are now, see hùng hổ)? MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 02:20, 23 April 2024 (UTC)