De-intensifying intensifiers in North Khiamniungan

Abstract This paper investigates the occurrence of ABB modifier patterns in Wolam Ngio (Glottolog: wola1254 ), a North Khiamniungan variety, along with the closely related standard Thang variety which serves as the standard dialect in India, as well as Kingphu Ngio spoken in neighbouring Myanmar. North Khiamniungan shows the ABB pattern as one of many productive uses of reduplication. This paper builds upon previous work on the occurrence of reduplicated modifiers in languages of Northeast India in which the bare stem A is followed by an often reduplicated morpheme B~B, which may or may not be semantically transparent.