975: Focus (Reduplication part 1/3) Aug 10, 2017

There are many ways in which reduplication—which can refer to any kind of doubling in speech—is employed to different effects. Sometimes, due to the multifaceted nature of word-definitions, words are reduplicated in order to contrast other meanings. One example of this is with the word 'like' which can denote lots of types of joy and pleasure, so when referring to romantic interest in another person, one (especially a child perhaps) may differentiate between "do you like him?" and "do you like-like him?", the latter of which is to say 'have romantic feelings'. This type of reduplication is called "contrastive focus reduplication", but reduplication can also produce the opposite effect. So called 'Shm-reduplication' (or Schm-reduplication) such as "rules shmules" is used to mock and dismiss an idea. These examples highlight the way in which reduplication in English directs the focus of a listener to a word in order to communicate different non-grammatical concepts, but this is by no means the only way this process is used; there will be more on this in the next few days.