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====== Reduplication ======

Reduplication means to duplicate a word in order to modify its meaning.

===== Reduplication for intensity and long duration =====

In Lugamun, adjectives and adverbs can be reduplicated in order to make them more intense – this is similar to placing **ingi** 'very'' before them.

**hau** – good\\
**hau hau** – very good, excellent

**mali** – small\\
**mali mali** – very small, tiny

This meaning also applies when adjectives are used as verbs:

**Ta ruma (xi) gran gran!** – That house is (really) huge!

If other verbs are reduplicated, this indicates an activity going on for a long time:

**Ya li nulis nulis [until] nait van.** – He/She wrote and wrote until late at night.

//Rationale:// According to WALS (ch. 27), most languages use reduplication for some semantic or grammatical purposes. WALS doesn't include a detailed study of what these purposes are, but according to APiCs (ch. 26), pidgins and creole languages most typically use it for iconic functions such as intensity (making a quality stronger) or iteration (indicating that a action takes place repeatedly or for a long time). We use it for these purposes as well. Cases of reduplication changing a word class are less frequent, but this is still the second most common function. We use it for this purpose too (see the next section).

===== Making adverbs from prepositions =====

Another use of reduplication is the formation of adverbs from short prepositions. In these cases, the resulting adverb is written as a single word.

**gen** – (together) with\\
**gengen** – together\\
**su** – under, below\\
**susu** – down, below, downward(s)

Example:

**Ona li go gen man.** – The woman went with the man.\\
**Ona va man li go gengen.** – The woman and the man went together.

Reduplication is only used with short prepositions that have just a single syllable. With longer prepositions, the result of reduplication would be a bit heavy (four syllables or more). Therefore **ku** is used to derive adverbs from prepositions with two or more syllables (just as from adjectives). 

**estra** – extra-, outside (prefix + preposition)\\
**ku estra** – outside, outward (adverb)