Reduplication in Oromo

Abstract The morphological processes of reduplication in Oromo involve copying a root or a stem, entirely or partially. The latter requires replication of a prosodic CVC template from the left side of the base. The process may require adapting the onset of the adjacent syllable as a coda of the prosodic template. The copied portion, reduplicant, of a root or a stem is prefixed to the latter. However, if the base consists of a geminate or a cluster, the prefixing of the copied reduplicant would be constrained to a CV by a dissimilation rule. In a total reduplication, as in partial reduplication, the copied root or stem is placed to the left of its base. The word classes amenable to total reduplication are nouns, determiners, numerals, adverbs and adpositions, while those agreeable to partial reduplication are adjectives and verbs. Functionally, reduplicated nouns assume a predicative role and adpositions an adverbial role. The reduplicative forms of the other word classes are limited to their respective canonical functions, essentially with the sense of augmentation in terms of quantity, frequency or intensity.