A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD)

Even though it is not very common, nouns can be marked for plurality with reduplication. There are two types of plural reduplication: simple reduplication and sideward reduplication.

            In simple reduplication, the movement of the noun sign is simply repeated in its canonical signing space.

         

 day_pl

‘days’                                                                            

   (r.f. Kubus 2008: 64)

In sideward reduplication, a noun is repeated by displacing it towards one side of signing space. 

table_pl    

‘tables’

When the sign is body-anchored as in man, then the signer moves his head and body from the contralateral to the ipsilateral side and the reduplication is achieved by at least three head nods that accompany this movement.

man_pl

 ‘men’

Sideward plural reduplication is different from localization [Morphology – 4.2.] in that a sideward reduplicated noun is not interpreted as expressing multiple entities being located next to each other.

            Some nouns cannot be reduplicated. For instance, book which is two-handed and is signed in the central signing space cannot be reduplicated.