The Reduplication that Denotes Ethnomathematical Signification: Exemplification from the Bidayuh Somu Language

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Abstract

This study rationalizes how reduplication as a morphological process denotes number signification in the Bidayuh Somu indigenous language, which is spoken in the western part of Indonesian West Borneo. The significations manifest ethnomathematical numbers as local genius are plurality, frequency, cardinal, ordinal, enumeration, and quantity. The study is field and descriptive linguistics, and the data is primary, collected by interviewing and recording native informants. The recorded data is then transcribed phonemically. The data selection is analyzed by applying the technique called Item and Process and Item and Arrangement. The process is reduplication, and the item is word reduplicated, while the arrangement is the morphs, the word constituents. This study discovers that the reduplication of the language is repeated and repeating syllables, that is, total and partial. The repeated syllable of the language reduplication word is the bound morpheme, while the repeating one is the free morpheme. The total and partial reduplication words of the language are nominal and verbal. The reduplication word arrangement involves the patterns of _root + root _or_ base + base_ that are repeating syllables. Moreover, the reduplication word arrangement also incorporates _affix + root + affix + root _or _affix + base + affix + base_ that are repeated and repeating syllables. The affix, as the bound morpheme, is _si-, niN-, buN-, puN-, _and_ pari-._ The element N in the bound morphemes is the nasalization representing allomorph /m-/, /n-/, /ŋ-/, and /ɲ-/ exist in the Bidayuh Somu language.

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License: CC-BY-4.0