Contrastive focus reduplication

Okay kiddo, let me explain contrastive focus reduplication. Imagine you have a ball and a toy car. You really, really like the ball and you want to make it clear that you are talking about the ball, not the car. So, when you say "I like the ball", you might repeat the word "ball" to emphasize that's what you are talking about. So you say, "I like the ball-ball". This is called contrastive focus reduplication.

It's like when you tell a story and you want to make sure everyone knows who you are talking about. Let's say you have two friends named Lily and Molly. You might say, "Lily went to the store, not Molly, Lily". You're repeating Lily's name to make sure everyone understands who you're talking about and that it's not Molly.

People use contrastive focus reduplication in language to emphasize a specific word, to make sure there's no confusion. It's kind of like bolding or underlining something in writing. It's a way to make sure a listener or reader understands what the speaker or writer is trying to say.