Journal of Arts. Vol. 1, 2013. 132 The Eleme reduplication as alliteration and rhyme Isaac Eyi Ngulube Abstract This paper re-examines reduplication as alliteration and rhyme with data from Eleme. Eleme belongs to the Ogonoid group spoken to the east of Port Harcourt, lite capital of Rivers State in Southeastern Nigeria. The language is classified as: Niger-Congo; Benue-Congo; Cross River; Delta Cross; Ogonoid; Eleme. The intent of this study is to refute some of Yip's claims because my data compel such. The theoretical framework adopted for this study is optimality. The paper re-l1iews pertinent literature focusing on Yip (1999). My position is modest: 'humans have both an aptitude and a taste for creating repetitive-sequences, and they may use this skill in a variety of ways that are more or less part of the core grammar of the language'. Of course, au fond grammatical knowledge is involved in all linguistic repetition, as can be seen btJ the implicit knowledge of syllable structure these phenomena evince. The mechanisms are the same, no matter what the function of the repetition . More specifically, I have claimed that the mechanisms distinguish rhyme and alliteration, and it is this that allows for repetition of either the whole or the part. These mechanisms have their grammatical incarnation as universal optimality theory constraints, motivated here through reduplicative data, but presumably also involved in poetry if one