Echo: is this an echo word or a reduplicative?
Is this a reduplicative or echo word? Such words occur in Hindi and other Indian languages. In Hyderabad Dependency Treebank they get their own part-of-speech tags RDP and ECH, respectively. We do not want to treat them as separate parts of speech because they could be assigned a POS independent of their RDP or ECH status (same as the word that they echo). Perhaps we should merge this also with the “hyph” feature to something called “compound”?
Rdp: reduplicative
The word is a copy of a previous word. In Hindi, this would add the meaning of distribution (“one rupee each”), separation (“sit separately”), variety, diversity or just emphasis.
Examples: [hi] “कभी - कभी” = “kabhī - kabhī” = “sometimes”, “कभी” = “kabhī” = “sometimes”; “एक एक” = “eka eka” = “one each”, “एक” = “eka” = “one”
Ech: echo
The word rhymes with a previous word but it is not identical to it and typically it does not have any meaning of its own. In Hindi it generalizes the meaning of the previous word and eventually translates as “or something”, “etc.” etc.
Examples: [hi] “चाय वाय” = “čāya vāya” = “tea or something” (as in “Have some tea or something.”)
For more details see Rupert Snell and Simon Weightman: Teach Yourself Hindi, Section 16.4 and 16.5, pages 210 – 211.
Echo in other languages: [hy] [u]