(Reduplication in Bantawa Language)
By:
Nunung Mardianti
E1D 111 098
V/C
ENGLISH EDUCATION
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF MATARAM
2014/2015
REDUPLICATION IN BANTAWA LANGUAGE
I. Intorduction
The Bantawa language is an endangered of Tibeto-Burman language that is spoken in the eastern Himalayan hills of eastern Nepal. It is belonging to Tibeto-Burman sub-family.This language is spoken by Rai ethnic groups. According to the 2001 National Census, at least 1.63% of the Nepal 's total population speaks Bantawa. About 370,000 speak Bantawa Language mostly in eastern hilly regions of Nepal (2001). It is also spoken is some parts of Darjeeling district of West Bengal (India), Sikkim and Bhutan.
Reduplication is one of the most productive morphological processes in Bantawa language. Commonly, this process has two major functions, namely morphology and semantics. According to Apte (1969), the morphological function of reduplication is to indicate the various grammatical categories such as number, gender, tense and mode etc. This function is not common in most of the languages. Furthermore, Bloomfield gives some of the examples of this type from tagalong and Fox. Whereas, the semantic function of reduplication is to show intensity, less intensity, continuity, certainty, distribution, repeated action and specification of the meaning which is expressed in the basic unit before the reduplication. This is the most common function which is found in the most of the languages. However, Bantawa has both of these functions of reduplication.
The term ‘reduplication’ is defined by various scholars in various ways regarding different languages. Apte, M. L. (1968) has given a detail description of reduplication process and it structure in Marathi. He writes “the term reduplication may now be defined as either the repetition of an entire or a particle phoneme sequence of a stem morpheme which, together with the stem,
References: Apte, M.L. 1968. Reduplication, Echo Formation and Onomatopoeia in Marathi, Poona: Deccan Collage. Baskhararao, Peri. 1977. Reduplication and Onomatopoeia in Telugu. Poona: Deccan Collage. Marantaz, A. 1982. “Reduplication” Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. 13. No. 13 ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantawa_language