Abstract
The paper starts from the question whether bla(h), bla(h), bla(h) - a linguistic expression that is ubiquitous in everyday conversation - is a case of (non)-prototypical total reduplication. It is argued that this syllable triple fulfills a range of formal criteria of total reduplication. On the meaning side, bla(h) is descriptively merely indexical, but may convey a range of additional expressive meaning aspects. However, it seems that triplication of bla(h) does not lead to a substantial change in eaning. This is taken as an argument against reduplication. On the other hand, the results of a corpus study in COCA indicate that there is a strong conversational preference to triplicate bla(h). It is concluded that bla(h), bla(h), bla(h) is neither an instance of (non)-prototypical reduplication nor of ‘free’ repetition, but a conventionalized repetitive pattern.The paper starts from the question whether bla(h), bla(h), bla(h) - a linguistic expression that is ubiquitous in everyday conversation - is a case of (non)-prototypical total reduplication. It is argued that this syllable triple fulfills a range of formal criteria of total reduplication. On the meaning side, bla(h) is descriptively merely indexical, but may convey a range of additional expressive meaning aspects. However, it seems that triplication of bla(h) does not lead to a substantial change in meaning. This is taken as an argument against reduplication. On the other hand, the results of a corpus study in COCA indicate that there is a strong conversational preference to triplicate bla(h). It is concluded that bla(h), bla(h), bla(h) is neither an instance of (non)-prototypical reduplication nor of ‘free’ repetition, but a conventionalized repetitive pattern.
