Binomials in English and French: ablaut, rhyme and syllable structure

Abstract Binomial expressions (e.g., hocus-pocus; dribs and drabs ) are irreversible sequences of two types: reduplicative binomials (e.g., pitter-patter ) and conjoined binomials (e.g., wheeling and dealing ). Both types exhibit similar phonological features such as rhyme, alliteration and ablaut alternation. The present study investigates English and French speaker preferences for phonological templates in binomials. Elicitation of preferences was carried out using nonsense sequences exemplifying the templates Simple Rhyme (e.g., fiply-biply; fudette-budette ), Complex Onset Rhyme (e.g., settip and slettip; ni cougui ni crougi ), and Ablaut (e.g., gesky and gosky; fudette-fudotte ), which were pitted against each other, e.g., gesky and gosky (Ablaut) versus gesky and glesky (Complex Onset Rhyme). Results of two experiments – the first involving nonce sequences containing disyllabic terms, the second involving nonsense items with monosyllabic constituents – reveal that English speakers prefer Simple Rhyme in items containing disyllabic constituents, and Ablaut for items containing monosyllabic terms. In contrast, French speakers prefer Ablaut in both the disyllabic term and the monosyllabic term conditions. In both experiments, Simple Rhyme is preferred to Complex Onset Rhyme. The experimental results for English align with statistical distributions of phonological templates in the Thun (1963. Reduplicative words in English: A study of formations of the types tick-tick, hurly-burly and shilly-shally . Lund: Carl Bloms) corpus of binomials. Our testing of English and French respondents further reveals that certain preferences are dissimilar across languages. Our findings lead us to propose that constraint rankings for reduplicatives in English and French under Optimality Theory should be sensitive to the number of syllables in constituent terms. In sum, the study of binomial expressions is enhanced by experimental evidence of speakers’ preferences when presented with competing sequencing patterns.