Typology of reduplication in Russian: constructions within and beyond a single clause

Abstract

We analyze repetition in Russian from the perspective of the Russian Constructicon which represents over 2200 grammatical constructions described in terms of anchors (fixed elements) and slots (for various filler elements) and fully annotated for their syntactic and semantic characteristics. The Russian Constructicon facilitates the first large-scale investigation of reduplication across a representative sample of an entire language, enabling us to map out a typology invoking these and other factors in the context of Construction Grammar. Our data on repetitions includes 118 constructions tagged in the Russian Constructicon for Reduplication, meaning that repetition occurs within a clause, and 28 entries tagged as Discourse “Echo” Constructions because they require the repetition of a word or phrase from a previous clause (often provided by an interlocutor). Five constructions carry both tags. We propose a theoretical expansion of the definition of reduplication to include the Discourse “Echo” type, arguing that constructions are not limited to a single clause or even to a single speaker. Our typology further explores the distribution of various formal and semantic factors observed in constructions with repetition and compares them with both previous typological research on reduplication and their distribution across the entire Russian Constructicon. Despite the fact that Russian does not use reduplication as a productive grammatical marker, we argue that reduplication is widespread and systematic in Russian.