I overheard a mother and her friends talking to her baby and the baby talk kind of grossed me out as they kept repeating words, going "you want milk milk? aiyo you so cute cute leh! where pain pain?"
This reduplication reminded me of the same feature we see in Singlish where this can be used to indicate the delimitative aspect ("you go think think a bit"), a more vivid description of something ("want to go walk walk see see?"), for intimacy ("my boy boy"), or for intensification ("wait long long ah").
What I struggled with here was whether the reduplication feature seen in Singlish started with mothers and others indulging in baby talk and expanded to include other uses besides intimacy or intensification, or whether this form of baby talk came naturally given the use of reduplication in Singlish. I would think it very possible that the baby talk could have started it all but it is definitely just a guess! I mean, looking at a baby like this:
