In DGS, the most common nominal plural marking strategy is reduplication. Here, depending on the phonological properties of the nouns, they can either be reduplicated or plural is not to expressed on the noun itself.
On the one hand, DGS nouns (table, book, house) which are signed midsagittal in front of the signer’s body express plurality by simple reduplication. As shown in the examples below, the repeated movement of the noun is the same as the base noun (a) or the repeated movement is slightly reduced as in (b).
a. table – table++
‘a table – tables.’
b. book – book++
‘a book – books’
On the other hand, nouns which are signed on the lateral side of the signing space are marked for plural with sideward reduplication. In this case, the movement of the sign is slightly displaced towards the ipsilateral or contralateral side of the signing space and is usually performed with shorter movements (compared to the citation form of the sign) as demonstrated below.
child – child++
‘a child- children’
Nouns which involve contact with the body as in (a) and (b) or nouns which are lexically specified for complex movement as (c) cannot be reduplicated. Instead, these types of nouns express plurality by using quantifiers as shown below.
a. village – many village
‘a village – many villages’
b. glass – many glass
‘a glass – many glasses’
c. car – many car
‘a car – many cars’
As a further strategy to express plurality, some body-anchored nouns in DGS which refer to humans can be combined with the sign person. person is signed on the lateral side of the signing space and can undergo sideward reduplication. Hence, plurality is not marked on the body-anchored noun, but rather on the person signby the means of sideward reduplication as exemplified below.
woman person++
‘women’
(based on Pfau & Steinbach, 2006: 172)