Johanna,
Just to gnaw on this one a bit more, I've noticed some potentially
relevant characteristics of the construction while mulling over it
lately:
(1) You can't do this with just any intensifier or adjective. Part of
the reason may be phonological -- "a big big problem" flows more
naturally than "a brobdingagian brobdingnagian problem." However, there
are many two-syllable intensifiers that can't be used this way, even
though "very" can (*an oddly oddly large cheese"). The doubled
adjectives in subject complement position that you noted are not so
restricted. What that means, I'm not sure, but part of it may be that
some of the phonological difficulties are eased in that position.
(2) In their typical usage, the pronominal/premodifier use of these
doubled forms are spoken almost as if one unit; it may be only spelling
conventions that prevent us from thinking of them as, for example,
veryvery.
(3) It's possible to read the first instance of the form as modifying
the second, rather than the head, e.g. [ ((very) very) large ]. If that
*is* the case, the argument for a comma is weakened, since they aren't
coordinate in any strict sense. Note that "and" cannot be used between
the two instances.
(4) If instead we choose to view the two instances as bound into one
"double construction" (i.e., not acting separately) based on the
restrictions of which roots can do this and their intonational contour,
then they start looking much more like traditional reduplication. Many
languages have a morphologically restricted set of roots that can be
reduplicated, with other roots of the same general class getting affixes
instead. That interpretation would militate against the comma as well,
though.
Now, I'm well aware that the type of reasoning I'm using for my proposed
comma rule with these is about the same as that used by various
18th-century nonluminaries (tenebraries?) to make up rules that bedevil
us today (whether this attitude makes me ironic or hypocritical is open
to question!). I just find the construction interesting, and I'm always
suspicious that the white spaces we put between words in print
predispose us to think of grammar in particular ways, and that
questioning those might be useful.
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Johanna Rubba
Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2005 11:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Commas with reduplicated adjectives
"Very, very" requires a comma. A repeated adjective would also require
commas: "It was a big, big, big mistake".
"Reduplication" is the technical term linguists use (redundantly) for a
doubling process with morphological or grammatical significance. Some
languages, for example, use it as a standard means of marking plural in
nouns, intensity in adjectives, or iterative aspect (repetition) in
verbs. They may double the whole stem or certain syllables of the stem.
I'm not completely sure of this, but I believe linguists don't consider
repetitions like "very, very big" or "big, big, big" to be
reduplication, because they aren't regular morphological processes
(yet). Reduplication is found in some English-based pidgins.
We do have one process which is close to true reduplication, if not all
the way there, and it is used for intensification, a typical
application of reduplication. E.g., "It wasn't just red, it was RED
red."
Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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