977: Ablaut (Reduplication part 3/3) Aug 12, 2017

This is the third and final (for now) post on reduplication; click the links day 1 and day 2 for the previous ones. As discussed yesterday, English does not use reduplication to indicate verbal modification in the way that other languages like Latin or Gothic. Nevertheless, English does have ablauts: a common feature in Germanic strong verbs and strong nouns. These appear in related forms that are not irregular, like 'swim, swam, swum',  'drink, drank, drunk', and 'spring, sprang, sprung' for which the form of the vowel is changed in the same way from word to word. To be clear, ablauts are not themselves reduplicates, but there is a strong association between the two, and in words like the Greek' dérkomai, dédorka' ('δέρκομαι, δέδορκα') meaning 'I see' and 'I saw', both ablaut and reduplication is present. Additionally, English words like 'chit-chat' or 'ding-dong' employ so called 'ablaut reduplication' which uses both processes. It is almost always the case that in those words the first vowel is a high vowel, while the second is a low vowel. This is demonstrated on the image below depicting where vowels are produced on the tongue, taken from:
http://www.speechmodification.com/online-practice-free-trial/how-to-pronounce-american-english-vowel-sounds