REDUPLICATED FORM OF ADJECTIVES IN SOMALI: A plural form or something else?

Abstract: Abstract The Somali adjectives gets reduplicated. This form of the adjective usually follows the nouns in the plural and the base form follows the nouns in the singular. The thesis aims to study the form and function of the reduplication of the adjectives (in contrast with the base form). This paper will investigate if all adjectives form reduplication, and whether it is necessary to reduplicate the adjectives to refer to the plural noun. A corpus investigation examining the forms of the 42 (39 basic and three derived) adjectives was conducted. A survey and an interview focusing the function of the reduplicated forms for 24 adjectives were also employed. Findings suggest that most of the adjectives can get reduplicated. This form usually follows the nouns in the plural; however, there are rare cases were the reduplicated form follows nouns in the sin-gular. When it follows the plural, the quality of the adjective is referred to the members of the plural separately. When the head noun is in the singular, then the reduplication form refers to different parts of the singular. In short, the quality of the reduplicated adjectives are distributed among the parts or mem-bers of the noun. On the other hand, the data show that the base form of the adjective which normally follow the noun in the singular, also follows the noun in the plural. Thus, the quality of the adjective in base form is referred to the noun in the plural, collectively.