Contrastive Reduplication

In the English language—which is renowned for its tendency to steal from other languages—there are many ways to alter the meaning of words.

One common method of tweaking a word is using what’s called “reduplication,” which involves reusing part or all of said word with a slight change or addition.

So adding “-ing” to “walk” creates “walking,” which evolves the root word from a multi-definitional verb and noun into another word that describes an act that’s currently underway. You can also add an “-ish” to weaken the meaning of a word; taking a “walkish” would probably mean taking a kinda’ sorta’ walk, but not a real one that’s worthy of the full, non-ished word.

You can take this still further using what’s called “triplication,” adding another adjustment word like “was” to create the phrase “was walking.” This makes use of that same root to generate even more specific meaning (referring to an action that happened in the past).

Alongside numerous other reduplication possibilities, “Contrastive Reduplication” refers to the repetition of a root word, rather than adding to or adjusting it, in order to generate additional meaning.

A paper from 2004 used the example of “salad-salad” to demonstrate this concept, a word-phrase that, when spoken, would have an emphasis on the first use: ie, “I’m eating a salad. Like, a SALAD-salad.”