The wide use of reduplication is certainly one of the most prominent grammatical features of Indonesian and Malay (as well as of other South-East Asian and Austronesian languages; cf. Gonda 1950; Alieva (ed.) 1980). Still, Indonesian reduplication does not seem to be actively discussed as a GRAMMATICALIZED phenomenon. Now, when it has been argued that grammaticalization is likely to be viewed as a process involving not only lexical items but also grammatical constructions (Dahl 2000; Lehmann 2002), there seems to be no reason why reduplication cannot be treated in this perspective on a par with segmental formatives. The question is, then, how the evolution of reduplication fits into the grammaticalization theory.

On the first view, Indonesian reduplication shows a number of characteristics that are typical of highly grammaticalized items. Synchronically, reduplication is very productive; it is used for expression of various grammatical functions (such as verbal aspect) and it is part in a number of complex morphological models (Simatupang 1983). Interestingly, in some of these models reduplication seems to be completely desemanticised - as is also the case with highly grammaticalized formants. In a diachronical perspective, reduplication seems to be a good illustration of the well-known Givónian slogan "Today's morphology is yesterday's syntax", and further, as was shown in Gonda 1950 (cf. also Carpenter 1996), certain functions of reduplication in Indonesian and related languages may be thought to result from the development of some other function.

However, while reconstructing the development of functions of reduplication, one can find certain unexpected peculiarities in the distribution of these functions. A case in point is simple reduplication of nouns and pronouns, which can express at least three meanings (1-3). These functions of reduplication form a hierarchy (4), according to which a meaning can be expressed by reduplication if and only if (with a few exceptions) the meanings placed higher cannot (due to semantic and/or pragmatic reasons).

(1)	Burung-burung	itu	juga	diekspor	ke	luar	negri
	bird-bird	that	also	PASS-export	to	outside	country
	'Those birds are also exported out of the country.' (DIVERSITY / NON-EXHAUSTIVE PLURALITY)
(2)	langit-langit 'ceiling; palate; etc.' < langit 'sky'
	jari-jari 'spoke; bar; radius; etc.' < jari 'finger' (CONCEPTUAL SIMILARITY)
(3)	Saya	bukan	anak-anak	lagi...	'I am not a child anymore!..'
	I	not	child-child	more	(PRAGMATIC ACCENTUATION)
(4)	Non-exhaustive plurality or diversity > Conceptual similarity > Pragmatic accentuation

The hierarchy (4) may reflect the spread of reduplication to new semantic contexts and as such can be reinterpreted as grammaticalization path, the more so that the evolution from semantic to pragmatic functions is fairly typical for grammaticalization. However, the development of the derivational 'similarity' function from the (more or less) inflectional plurality/diversity function is more problematic for the grammaticalization theory, because it violates the principle of unidirectionality, which prohibits the path INFLECTION > DERIVATION.

Importantly, it seems that no retention of meaning can be proved here. We hypothesize, then, that in this case the expansion process could occur due to non-semantic factors including the high degree of grammaticalization of reduplication reflected in its increasing regularity (even though the expansion based on semantic evolution was also possible for reduplication). If so, then one can argue that this development does not represent grammaticalization or at least represents a particular type of it, where the unidirectionality principle may not work.

Of course, the evolution of reduplication is not a prototypical instance of grammaticalization, and the "naturalness" of this morphological operation could also play some role here. Nevertheless, our case study does show that the expansion of grammatical means is not necessarily based on semantics, hence resulting in grammatical homonymy rather than on grammatical polysemy.

References

Alieva, N.F. (ed.) 1980. Jazyki Jugo-Vostochnoj Azii: Problemy povtorov. Moscow: Nauka.

Carpenter, K. 1994. Reduplication in Austronesian languages and in child language. Paper presented at the 7th ICAL, Leiden University.

Dahl, Ö. 1998 Grammaticalization and the life-cycles of constructions. Paper presented at the 17th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, Odense University.

Gonda J. 1950. The function of word duplication in Indonesian languages. Lingua 2: 170-197.

Lehmann, C. 2002. New reflections on grammaticalization and lexicalization. In New Reflections on Grammaticalization, ed. by I. Wischer & G. Diewald, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins

Simatupang, M.D.S. 1983. Reduplikasi Morfemis Bahasa Indonesia. Jakarta: Djambatan.