Q: Is there an official linguistics name for words with two similar-sounding parts, like wishy-washy, namby-pamby, dilly-dally, or fuddy-duddy? Some of the ones I can think of rhyme and some have a vowel change.
A: "The repeating of parts of words to make new forms is called reduplication."
Linguistics-y question I almost asked
Re: Linguistics-y question I almost asked
So "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey" is a double reduplication?
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--Jasper Fforde
Re: Linguistics-y question I almost asked
Fun fact: In English reduplicative phrases that only have a vowel change, the vowel (almost?) always changes from high to low. So "wishy-washy" and "tic-tac," but not "washy-wishy" or "tac-tic."
Re: Linguistics-y question I almost asked
Is this related at all to the diminishing effect of replacing the first consonant of a word with "schm", such as "fancy, schmancy"? That comes from Yiddish, I believe.
Re: Linguistics-y question I almost asked
Does this come from how the sounds are produced in our mouths? (Back to front, in other words.)Katya wrote:Fun fact: In English reduplicative phrases that only have a vowel change, the vowel (almost?) always changes from high to low. So "wishy-washy" and "tic-tac," but not "washy-wishy" or "tac-tic."
Re: Linguistics-y question I almost asked
I don't know. I suppose you'd have to start by investigating the semantic effects of rhyming constructions.Yarjka wrote:Is this related at all to the diminishing effect of replacing the first consonant of a word with "schm", such as "fancy, schmancy"? That comes from Yiddish, I believe.
Re: Linguistics-y question I almost asked
No clue. I don't even know if it's a global constraint or if it's just limited to English.Portia wrote:Does this come from how the sounds are produced in our mouths? (Back to front, in other words.)Katya wrote:Fun fact: In English reduplicative phrases that only have a vowel change, the vowel (almost?) always changes from high to low. So "wishy-washy" and "tic-tac," but not "washy-wishy" or "tac-tic."
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The Happy Medium
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Re: Linguistics-y question I almost asked
The reduplicated words are also minimal pairs because they share the same phonemes except one.
Re: Linguistics-y question I almost asked
Oh, minimal pairs! That's a good way of describing them.The Happy Medium wrote:The reduplicated words are also minimal pairs because they share the same phonemes except one.