The linguistic value and status of variated twin forms

8.5.1. If we consider the strictly grammatical catego­ries of word-formation, i. e. compounding, suffixation, and prefixation, we observe that a composite is a syntagma based on a determinant/deterrninatum relationship. When­ever a word is not analysable as consisting of meaning­ful signs, in other words, when it is unmotivated by con­tent, it is not relevant to grammatical word-formation. The question therefore arises whether rime and ablaut reduplications which (at least in principle) are not made up of two real signs, are relevant to word-formation at all, A sign has two facets, that of the significate (signifie, content) and that of the significant (signifiant, form). Syntagmas such as rainbow, fatherhood, undo are motivated by the contents of rain and -bow, father and -hood, un- and do. This is obviously not the kind of motivation that applies to ablaut and rime combinations. But we may find a motivation by form. It cannot, indeed, be denied that the rhythmic doubling and the elements of ablaut and rime do in fact constitute a motivation, and that these esthetic elements determine the character of the combina­tions based on them.

8.5.2. According to their motivation, we may distin­guish the following types:

sing-song / walkie-talkie motivation by two signs (but see below);

chit-chat / super-duper partial motivation by the significate plus motivation by rhythm and ablaut (or rime);

flim-flam / boogie-woogie motivation by rhythm and ab­laut (or rime) only.

All these words are basically motivated by rhythm and ablaut (or rime) underlying the significants of the twin form. Even those combinations which are composed of two independent words do not speak against this essential char­acter of twin words. Singsong is not really a combination of two signs comparable to rainbow. Though a purely intellectual analysis may define the twin form as a com­pound, the joining of the two contents is not what makes the characteristic feature of the combination. Nor is walkie-talkie just walkie + talkie, but we have a playfully matched combination whose elements were attracted to each other, so to speak, by the esthetic element of rime while the putting together of logical contents is more or less inci­dental. Nobody would consider cook book a riming combi­nation as here rime is incidental while the logical content of the constituents is the only relevant fact.

8.5.4. The problem of motivation is more complicated in rime combinations. Riming twin forms are, to a large extent, made up of fanciful elements, i. e. they consist of pseudo-morphemes. As a result, they have a less serious character than ablauting combinations. While the majority of the latter derive from one real morpheme and can therefore point to the significate, those rime combinations which are composed of pseudo-morphemes, cannot give us any clue as to the significate. Playful motivation by the form of the significant is therefore more complete with riming twin words. This applies also to combinations which are partly motivated by the significate. Rime is less serious than ablaut. This is probably the reason why ab­laut often plays a grammatical role (as in IE languages, cp. sing / sang / sung)whereas rime never assumes any gram­matical function at all.

The higher degree of purely playful motivation in rime combinations gives those words their particular stylistic quality. In general, they are indicative of the speech en­vironment where they originated or where they are used. Of the examples in our list, quite a number are slang terms: flubdub, heebie-jeebies, hoity-toity, hokey-pokey, hootchie-kootchie, hotsy-totsy, lovey-dovey, sacky-dacky, super-duper, ram-jam. Others belong to the nursery: handy-dandy, hy-spy, humpty-dumpty, popsy-wopsy (or slang), tootsie-wootsie (or slang). [...]

8.5.6. To sum up: while compounding, prefixing, and suffixing have a primarily practical purpose, i. e. that of signalling intellectual messages, rime and ablaut subor­dinate the intellectual purpose of signalling to the emor tional one of playing. The type of emotional motivation; we have in rime and ablaut combinations must not be confused with that which we find in appreciative suffixes. In dadd-у from dad, the suffix -y is a complete linguistic sign expressive of emotion. In ablaut and rime combinations, emotion is not expressed by a sign, but suggest­ed only by the form of the significant: twinning combined with phonetic alternation. [...]