Datapoint Jamaican/Expression of nominal plural meaning

The expression of nominal plural meaning by reduplication is marked here as marginal in Jamaican because there is a phonotactic constraint on its usage. This process takes nouns which are mono-syllabic as its base. Some cases of bisyllabic bases may occur but they are less frequent and in some cases they sound unnatural.

It should be noted that nominal reduplication is not a "normal" plural since it cannot refer to two entities – which is a clear instance of plural meaning. This type of nominal reduplication has to refer to three or more (i.e. several) entities.

Values

Plural word following the noun Frequency: 90.0%

Example 8-35:
Di pus-dem av nof pikni.
Di
det
pus-dem
puss-pl
av
have
nof
many
pikni.
child
The cats have many kittens.
Confidence:
Very certain

Plural reduplication Frequency: 10.0%

Example 8-34:
buk-buk
buk-buk
book-book
(several) books (more than two)

Source: Kouwenberg et al. 2003: 107

Confidence:
Very certain