Repeated Noun Forms

Level 2

Attested plurals include balbalay ‘houses’, batbato ‘stones’, tattao ‘people’ and ubbing ‘children’.

How It Works

Many noun phrases express plurality through dagiti. Certain nouns also have partially repeated forms: bato → batbato ‘stone → stones’ and balay → balbalay ‘house → houses’. Other established plurals have different surface shapes, including ubing → ubbing ‘child → children’. Preserve the doubled consonant in ordinary spelling and learn the form individually.

Marker–noun number agreement is flexible. Medina/Pawley allows dagiti tao with an unrepeated noun and ti tattao with a morphologically plural noun. A plural marker therefore does not compel noun repetition, and the marker alone does not determine every noun phrase's number.

Partial and complete repetition need not have the same meaning. The word-formation section distinguishes batbato ‘stones’ from complete repetition of bato with a ‘full of stones’ reading. This supports an abundance distinction for that base, rather than a universal full-repetition plural rule.

Examples (3)

  1. dagiti balbalay idiay ili

    the houses in town

    Noun phrase: the plural marker accompanies the attested repeated form balbalay.

  2. dagiti batbato dita

    the stones there

    Noun phrase: batbato is a partially repeated plural.

  3. Adda ubbing ditoy.

    There are children here.

    Ubbing is an established plural with a doubled consonant.

How It Connects

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Repeated Noun FormsLevel 2

Learn This First

Some nouns have repeated plural forms; learn each actual form and meaning.