Functions of reduplication 143
(48) ...mangkana engko' la becce'-becce' neng dhinna'.
therefore I already RED-good at here
‘...therefore, I have been very good while I have been here.’
In (47), the reduplicated adjective raddin ‘pretty’ indicates emphasis as, given
the discourse context, the subject of this sentence is singular. Of course, in an
appropriate context this could be interpreted as plural and not emphatic with the
meaning ‘The princesses are pretty’. In (48), emphasis is the only possible in-
terpretation of the reduplicated becce' ‘good’ as it is predicated of the singular
subject engko' ‘I’. This emphatic reduplication can combine with the iterative
suffix -an, as in (49-50) for emphasis or to denote a habitual property.
(49) Hasan ra'-bara'-an.
Hasan RED-swollen-IT
‘Hasan is swollen all over.’
(50) Hadi sen-busen-nan.
Hadi RED-bored-IT
‘Hadi is easily bored.’
3.2 Reduplication of nouns
Reduplication of noun stems for the most part indicates either simple plurality
or some notion of plurality.
As shown in some examples in section 1, both final-syllable and whole-
word reduplication signals plurality.
(51) buku ‘book’ ku-buku ‘books’
labang ‘door’ bang-labang ‘doors’
mored ‘student’ red-mored ‘students’
sorat ‘letter’ rat-sorat ‘letters’
ka-toron-an ‘progeny’ ron-katoronan ‘descendents’
(52) kebun ‘animal’ kebun-kebun ‘animals’
leke ‘stream’ leke-leke ‘streams’
oreng ‘person’ oreng-oreng ‘people’
massa'-an ‘food/dish’ massa’an-massa’an ‘dishes’
kraton ‘palace’ kraton-kraton ‘palaces’
With certain types of generic nouns, in combination with the suffix -an,
reduplication serves not only to indicate plurality but also carries the additional
meaning of indicating a variety of types, as in (53).