Re...

Posted by TheFallen on May 11, 2002

In Reply to: Re... posted by R. Berg on May 10, 2002

: : : : Can anyone tell me if there is a term for the study of words that have multiple, consecutive, identical syllables such as the word "murmur". Additionally, can anyone think of other such words that are not nonsensical words.

: : : Tomtom, frou-frou, tutu, juju, berber, dada, ack-ack, maumau, plenty of babytalk examples like mama, papa and booboo and the majorly cheating hotshots (*grin*), to name a few. There'll be plenty more, I'm sure.

: : If there *isn't* "a term for the study of words that have multiple, consecutive, identical syllables" I would like to nominate "ologyology."

: "Reduplication" can be used for a word formed that way as well as for the process of forming it.

An idle thought - why is it *re*duplication? Isn't that tautologous? Aren't murmur et al. examples of syllable duplication, and not reduplication? Well, unless someone can come up with a word of three or more identical syllables, that is :)