Reduplication in Swahili

The aim of this article is to deal with reduplication in Swahili. In phase I, we pay attention to the process of reduplication as such, i.e., we try to define this phenomenon and we determine the scope of our study. The core of phase II is constituted by the examination of formal properties of reduplication in Swahili. Phase III contains the investigation of the phenomenon in question from the functional perspective. In the next phase, we concentrate on the so-called `pseudoreduplication` since we are convinced that this feature of Swahili morphology is quite important in relation to reduplication. The last phase is devouted to the analysis of a set of concrete examples from a work of fiction which illustrates the issues discussed in previous phases. Although this study is intended to be an intralanguage one, we do not restrain omselves from occassional interlanguage comparisons since it is our belief that any contrastive comparison can contribute to a better understanding of the phenomenon concerned. The synchronic point of view is applied throughout the whole study