Japanese is rich in reduplications, and some medical examples have been imported into English. Or continuity, as in murmur and susurrus. Or repetition, as in the onomatopoeic borborygmi (multiple rumbling of the guts). For example, it can indicate intensity, as in beri-beri, which is probably from the Sinhalese word beri (debility)-that is, much debility. In some languages reduplication is simply used to indicate a plural, but there are other uses. For example, the paradigm of the Latin word to touch is tango, tangere, tetigi, tactum, with reduplication in the perfect tense, mimicking the repetition of a past action.Ī reduplication is also “a word form produced by repetition of a syllable.” Examples include helter-skelter, gaga, hurdy-gurdy, tip-top.
However, “reduplication” has a distinct grammatical meaning, not shared by “duplication”: “repetition of a syllable or letter, especially in the case of verbal forms.” Typically this occurs in the perfect tense of Greek and Latin verbs. Now it is true that the first definition of reduplication in the Oxford English Dictionary is “the action of doubling or folding,” which is just what duplication means. I have been asked why I used the word “reduplication” in a piece about dilatation ( BMJ 2000 320:625), when “duplication” would have done just as well.