Idiomaticity of reduplicated forms

What is it about?

The present paper deals with the expressions vot-vot, von-von, nu-nu, ku-ku, tak-tak, net-net and some others based on reduplication. These lexical units exhibit a nontrivial combination of properties related to iconicity and idiomaticity. Some of these units, taken in certain meanings, are idioms, others are idiomatic without being idioms, and still others lack even a minimal degree of idiomaticity. The degree of idiomaticity is inversely proportional to the iconicity of semantics. The reduplicated form net-net is idiomatic in the sense that it has a specifi c scope extending to different levels of the meaning of the previous context, and does not correspond to the scope of ordinary negation. The paper discusses examples of the use of the unit net-net, demonstrating the various features of its semantic scope.

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