"Very, very" requires a comma. A repeated adjective would also require 
commas: "It was a big, big, big mistake".

"Reduplication" is the technical term linguists use (redundantly) for a 
doubling process with morphological or grammatical significance. Some 
languages, for example, use it as a standard means of marking plural in 
nouns, intensity in adjectives, or iterative aspect (repetition) in 
verbs. They may double the whole stem or certain syllables of the stem.

I'm not completely sure of this, but I believe linguists don't consider 
repetitions like "very, very big" or "big, big, big" to be 
reduplication, because they aren't regular morphological processes 
(yet). Reduplication is found in some English-based pidgins.

We do have one process which is close to true reduplication, if not all 
the way there, and it is used for intensification, a typical 
application of reduplication. E.g., "It wasn't just red, it was RED 
red."

Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba

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