Thank you for your analysis of the pinyin reduplications, Zhe!
From these examples, it seems clear that reduplication is systematically used to generate words. In this text, the most frequent case seems converting an adjective into an adverb, e.g.
mànmàn 慢慢 “slowly”
where màn means "slow"
At least one case seems to involve duration:
zǒuzhe zǒuzhe 走着走着 “while walking”
From the little I have seen of reduplication in various languages, it seems to me that there is a set of functions that appear in unrelated languages. For instance, reduplicated adjectives generate adverbs in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. too.
I am under the impression that Voynichese reduplication is often seen from an Euro-centric point of view: since reduplication is rare or absent in languages like Latin or English, people conclude that it is "non-linguistic".
Evidence like that so kindly illustrated by Zhe points out that exact reduplication occurs in non European languages with a frequency comparable with that of the VMS. Time ago, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. observed that this might also be true for Thai.
Experiments I have run on the UDHR corpus point out that 60 out of 378 languages have exact repetition rates similar or higher to the VMS - see the X axis in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Voynich samples are plotted as blue diamonds, some European languages as orange circles).
In my opinion, reduplication is the most evident hint to the underlying language of Voynichese being "unexpected". While I don't believe there is much evidence supporting the idea that Voynichese is Mandarin Chinese, I am sure that this discussion can help us understand how different from Latin and English languages can be.
I am also greatly interested in the pseudo-reduplication phenomenon mentioned by Donjch, but my preference goes to a step-by-step approach. Exact reduplication is obviously easier to define and hence to analyse than pseudo-reduplication. Also, a limited investigation I described You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. points out that at least some occurrences of pseudo-reduplication appear to be the result of the interaction of LAAFU (line as a functional unit) and exact reduplication. On the basis of this, my opinion is that there could be other basic phenomena (like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) that alter exact reduplication to produce pseudo-reduplication.
I think that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about Voynichese prefixes being problematic when compared with Chinese are also relevant to this subject: it could very well be that there are other cases (not at line boundary) where exact reduplication is transformed into quasi-reduplication by the alteration of one of the two words in the pair.
Is pseudo-reduplication something that happens in Chinese? I.e. is it possible that instead of the exact repetition of a word (X becoming XX) one of the two occurrences is modified in the process (for instance resulting in something like pXX, XpX, XXp)?
From these examples, it seems clear that reduplication is systematically used to generate words. In this text, the most frequent case seems converting an adjective into an adverb, e.g.
mànmàn 慢慢 “slowly”
where màn means "slow"
At least one case seems to involve duration:
zǒuzhe zǒuzhe 走着走着 “while walking”
From the little I have seen of reduplication in various languages, it seems to me that there is a set of functions that appear in unrelated languages. For instance, reduplicated adjectives generate adverbs in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. too.
I am under the impression that Voynichese reduplication is often seen from an Euro-centric point of view: since reduplication is rare or absent in languages like Latin or English, people conclude that it is "non-linguistic".
Evidence like that so kindly illustrated by Zhe points out that exact reduplication occurs in non European languages with a frequency comparable with that of the VMS. Time ago, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. observed that this might also be true for Thai.
Experiments I have run on the UDHR corpus point out that 60 out of 378 languages have exact repetition rates similar or higher to the VMS - see the X axis in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Voynich samples are plotted as blue diamonds, some European languages as orange circles).
In my opinion, reduplication is the most evident hint to the underlying language of Voynichese being "unexpected". While I don't believe there is much evidence supporting the idea that Voynichese is Mandarin Chinese, I am sure that this discussion can help us understand how different from Latin and English languages can be.
I am also greatly interested in the pseudo-reduplication phenomenon mentioned by Donjch, but my preference goes to a step-by-step approach. Exact reduplication is obviously easier to define and hence to analyse than pseudo-reduplication. Also, a limited investigation I described You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. points out that at least some occurrences of pseudo-reduplication appear to be the result of the interaction of LAAFU (line as a functional unit) and exact reduplication. On the basis of this, my opinion is that there could be other basic phenomena (like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) that alter exact reduplication to produce pseudo-reduplication.
I think that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about Voynichese prefixes being problematic when compared with Chinese are also relevant to this subject: it could very well be that there are other cases (not at line boundary) where exact reduplication is transformed into quasi-reduplication by the alteration of one of the two words in the pair.
Is pseudo-reduplication something that happens in Chinese? I.e. is it possible that instead of the exact repetition of a word (X becoming XX) one of the two occurrences is modified in the process (for instance resulting in something like pXX, XpX, XXp)?
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