i'm rather intrigued by the feature of reduplication in malay because i'd never realised how startlingly like chinese it is. i don't mean in the more common case of the formation of plurals (barang = thing, barang-barang = things, goods) but in adjectives and adverbs, as in sentences like:

jangan duduk jaul-jaul = lit. don't sit far far,
or
jalan cepat-cepat = lit. walk quick-quick

compare chinese "yuan yuan di," "kuai kuai di"

although the exact nuance conveyed by the intensification is very difficult to describe, isn't it? do you make distinctions between: ta pao de kuai = he/she/it is a quick runner [habitually] or, in some contexts, he ran quickly [single instance, past.]
ta kuai kuai di(de) pao, he/she/it is running quickly [present continuous]
ta pao de kuai kuai di(de) [as a description of state, has a bit of a tam..quam... quality)

not easy is it, to say what this last conveys precisely? is that same difficulty in the malay, does it strike the malay speaker as a difficulty? and if it doesn't is it because we speak singlish, and the reduplication which mirrors both the local languages of malay and chinese seems natural? i also find this last use of "kuai kuai di" rather difficult to classify as a part of speech. do you think that qualifies as an adverbial or adjectival use? and come to that, what about de and di(de)? they must be some kind of adverb, but why? i daren't ask my mater, who is writing a paper and will not be disturbed for foolish questions from her ignoramus daughter, who should have majored in chinese if she wanted to know things like that.