Gloria Mellesmoen will give an in-person LOC colloquium on November 24th 3:30-5pm\, 2023.

Title: Miniature\, Messy\, and Meaningful: Diminutive Reduplication in Salish

Abstract: A diminutive morpheme signals that something is small or little in some dimensi on\, which can include the size of an object (``small cat”) or amount of a quality (``a little clever”). Diminutivity is typically marked in Salish la nguages by reduplication\, which is the morphological process of doubling c ertain sounds in a word to change the word’s meaning (mima w ‘cat’ > mimmaw ‘little cat’). While di minutive reduplication in Salish has received some attention in phonologica l theory for its typologically uncommon properties (e.g.\, bare consonant r eduplication)\, there is still much unknown about its range of permutations across the family and its semantic contribution. In this talk\, I highligh t some key findings about the morphophonology and semantics of diminutive r eduplication in Salish\, which only emerge when the methodological and empi rical challenges that arise in the documentation and analysis of reduplicat ion are considered.