Russian reduplication: units and frames of recursion (linguodidactic aspect)

Abstract

The article is devoted to Russian reduplication as a multilevel language mechanism and its presentation in the lessons of Russian as a foreign language. The article provides examples from colloquial speech and fiction, which present various units of repetition (sound, syllable, morpheme, word, phrase and sentence) that correspond to the levels of language (phonetic, morphemic, lexical, syntactic). Some units can be repeated inside different segments, or frames (inside a word, sentence or text). Based on the analysis of the linguistic material, the article concludes that reduplication is a widespread phenomenon that probably has a field structure, suggesting the presence of a core, periphery and areas of intersection with other linguistic phenomena. We propose to consider lexemes formed by repeating a word (большой-большой, много-много, кофе-кофе etc.) as the core of reduplication, since they are most often found in colloquial speech. Not being proper vocabulary units, such lexemes, as a rule, present difficulties for foreign students, they are characterized by productivity rather than reproducibility. The article presents a fragment of a set of exercises and tasks aimed at developing the skill of correct perception of Russian reduplicates by foreign speakers. This didactic material can be used in courses and seminars of Russian as a foreign language.