This article is concerned with reduplication in Uab Meto which divided into three parts.
First is general characterization of reduplication in UAb Meto, second are the formal
properties of reduplication in Uab Meto, third is the function of reduplication in Uab Meto.
Data was elicited from observation and interviewing native speakers. Some data also taken
from literatures which written in Uab Meto such as bible and articles in local news papers. Uab Meto has a unique characteristic of reduplicating a word because analyzing
morphological process of reduplication is interrelated to other aspects such as clause
(syntax) and sound harmony (phonology). Based on data collected, it shown that
reduplication can be done to verb, noun, adjective, and adverb. For example, the noun neno
‘day’ has two forms of reduplication, they are neno-neno that is a noun and nen-neno’ is
an adverb. The first reduplicated word neno-neno means every day, while the second, nenneno’
means on the day time. Another aspect to see in this article is the function of
reduplication. The word muti’ ‘white’ for example, has two form of reduplication, namely
muti-muti and mut-muti’. The first reduplicated word muti-muti is an intensification which
mean very white/clean but the second mut-muti, there is a transfer of meaning to show
similarity which mean ‘looks white’.
The two examples above show that reduplication in Uab Meto is a morphological process
which is driven by phonological output requirements. Phonological constraints are existed
to make the output phonologically harmonic. The result of reduplicated word can be either
inflectional or derivational
