146 Chapter 5 Reduplication
Finally, there are a number of forms that occur only in reduplicated form,
the apparent root never occurring independently.^2 Some of these are:
(61) lon-alon ‘town square’
ko'-rongko' ‘hut’
cangcang ‘chop up’
thengtheng ‘strong’
dhungdhung ‘large drum’
3.3 Indefinite expressions
Reduplication of interrogative expressions derives indefinite expressions.
(62) sapa ‘who’ pa-sapa ‘whoever/someone’
apa ‘what’ pa'-apa ‘whatever/something’
kamman ‘where’ man-kamman ‘everywhere’
bila ‘when’ bila-bila ‘sometime’
barampan ‘how many’ pan-barampan ‘several’
The sentences in (63) and (64) illustrate.
(63) Pa-apa se e-sambi jiya,ayu' ka-tana'!
RED-what REL OV-bring this HORT KA-cook
‘Whatever we brought, let’s cook it!’
(64) Dha' man-kamman Tuan Kontlir jareya nyambi pestol.
to RED-where Mr Kontlir this AV.bring pistol
‘Wherever Sir Kontlir went, he brought his pistol.’
3.4 Adverbs
As stated previously, many manner adverbs are derived from adjectives with the
suffix -an. Additionally, it is quite common for these to be reduplicated, as in
the following cases.
(65) laon ‘slow’ on-laon-an ‘slowly’
onggu ‘real’ gu-onggu-wan ‘really’
terrang ‘clear’ rang-terrang-an ‘clearly’
(^2) Many of these have monosyllabic roots and have been reconstructed as reduplicated
monosyllables in Proto-Malayo-Polynesian. See Dempwolff 1937 and Dyen 1965.