ABSTRACT
Birds often have names that exhibit reduplication, usually reduplication of a syllable. Perhaps the reduplication is iconic of flapping wings, as with examples such as wig-wag and flip-flop. Apart from forms associated with baby talk straight out reduplication is not a prominent feature of English. While standard reduplication is marginal in English, there are quite a number of examples of reduplication involving vowel alternation and the pattern is productive. The first component of hoity-toity is based on the obsolete verb hoit ‘to romp’ and the reduplication originally referred to riotous behaviour before acquiring its current meaning of assuming a haughty superiority in manner or attitude. Many languages form words by reduplication. In many of the examples the reduplication is iconic in that it expresses intensity and the rhyme with a nonsense component imparts an informal character.
