From el Popo(catépetl) to Polvos Pica-pica: The Marvels of Reduplication

You're reading this article in English, so I've made a few assumptions about you in order to write it. I'll make yet another one. I'll assume you've probably heard all or most of the following and understand what they mean: willy-nilly, fifty-fifty, kitty-cat, wishy-washy, that baby seems to be getting uglier and uglier. All of these are examples of reduplication in the English language, and they are so common that we seldom stop to think that we're really duplicating a whole element or part of it. Reduplication happens in all languages, including Spanish. It can be classified into two main categories: complete (a whole word is replicated) and partial reduplication (a part of a word is replicated). The category that is the juiciest in Spanish is the one that uses whole words, but for the sake of completeness, examples of words that duplicate an element and not a whole word in Spanish are: "un noticionón", "chiquitito", "grandotote", etc. 

For complete reduplication, words can be juxtaposed or placed side by side as in when you say that those tomatoes you bought earlier today están rojos rojos (intensely/very red) or when I say that I'm mexicano mexicano (quite Mexican), not just a little. Words can also be put together through a word that coordinates them as in mi amigo está habla que habla y no se ha callado en todo el día - he can't stop talking! Digan lo que digan (whatever people/others say), he just doesn't care - he'll keep talking. In this other example, the repeating of verbs conveys emphasis with a a nuance (believe it or not/contrary to popular belief, x or y happens): Nunca he visto una bruja, pero de que las hay, las hay (I don't believe in witches, but they do exist!) Another example is when you see roaches coming out of your house sink - something that had never happened before, so you're in shock telling your friends an hour after the issue was fixed: ¡salían cucarachas y cucarachas! They just wouldn't stop - it was so many of them. Finally, the third category is one where placement does the trick. You can say things like: (de) entender, entiendo, pero no lo hablo (I do understand, but I don't speak it). El presidente de X País ¡es malo, pero malo! (a really bad person). In conclusion, reduplication can have the effect of intensification, iteration or clarification through emphasis. 

In Mexican Spanish, we often go overboard with reduplication. We say luego to mean soon/later, but we say luego luego to mean immediately. We also say casi for almost, as everyone knows, but duplicate it to make it even closer to reality than it already is/was: casi casi. It's also no secret that we use the infamous ahorita, but can use reduplication to emphasize that this ahorita is different. It's not within an indefinite period of time, but rather, it's an action that will happen ahoritita or ahorititita. Depending on context, it can also mean that it happened just now, less than a second ago: Me acaban de asaltar y el ladrón se fue ahorititita - ¡persíganlo! I just got mugged and thief took off just now - go chase him! All of these beautiful words and processes are perfectly documented, and you're probably just getting a review for most of them. But what if I told you that there is a grammatical feature that will make you sound super Mexican, but that isn't so well documented. In fact, it's considered colloquial, informal, and not suitable for writing. Most other Latin Americans will even consider it foreign in the best case scenario or wrong in the worst case scenario.

This grammatical feature works with estar (in Mexican Spanish, it is often replaced with andar informally) or seguir as auxiliary verbs, and while everything would point to a form exactly like "estar + -ando/-iendo (-ing equivalents), the truth is that this form does not change according to grammatical persons or tenses, and uses only one suffix -e for ALL verbs. So the verb is not in the indicative, but it's not in the subjunctive either. The meaning is iteration: can't stop doing something, keep(s) doing something, goes on and on doing something, etc. It looks like this: 

Verb hablar: Estoy hable y hable. Mi amigo está hable y hable. Estamos hable y hable. Mis amigas van a estar hable y hable mañana. Ayer, mi perro estuvo hable y hable. 

Verb dormirse: Me estoy duerme y duerme. Mi amigo se está duerme y duerme en la clase. Nos estamos duerme y duerme en la clase. Mis amigas se van a estar duerme y duerme en la clase mañana. Ayer, mi perro se estuvo duerme y duerme en la clase. 

Verb quejarse: Me estoy queje y queje. Mi amigo se está queje y queje. Nos estamos queje y queje. Mis amigas se van a estar queje y queje mañana. Ayer, mi perro se estuvo queje y queje. 

Verb comer: Estoy come y come. Mi amigo está come y come. Estamos come y come. Mis amigas van a estar come y come mañana. Ayer, mi perro estuvo come y come. 

Verb chingar (to bother - very rude word that should be avoided in most contexts, among other meanings): Estoy chingue y chingue. Mi amigo está chingue y chingue. Estamos chingue y chingue. Mis amigas van a estar chingue y chingue mañana. Ayer, mi perro estuvo chingue y chingue. 

Disclaimer: I know before even posting this that some native speakers will tell me not to teach "incorrect grammar" to Spanish students, that I will confuse them, etc. Two things: 

1. Like I said, this is not meant to be written or used in most academic and professional settings, but it is absolutely one of the most common ways to express iteration in Mexican Spanish in natural, spontaneous and non-monitored settings.
2. I'm a linguist, and there is no such thing as "incorrect grammar" in linguistics. Structures are contextual and are adequate or they aren't. Any qualifiers given to structures, whether positive or negative, are add-ons by human ideas and prejudice. 

A grammar structure that is similar to this one, which is used in many other parts of Latin America, and is considered "correct" by most standards is the use of estar + a verb in the present tense, third person, duplicated with the conjunction que in between: Mi hermana está habla que habla, duerme que duerme, come que come, etc. Although we understand it in Mexico, we do not use it as often as the one I explained above.