What does normal(+) status in svn denotes?

Dan's answer is correct. And to add information for Developer Webs' question:

If I merge a folder from one branch to another, the folder's status is "added (+)" but the children files of that folder have a status of "normal (+)". But they are all being added just as their parent folder is being added. So why does SVN use added vs normal?

The files with normal(+) will be added to the commit, but you don't need to check it for committing. As the parent folder has an added(+) status, it will be included recursively. Also, no transfer from your local copy to the server will be done, as the file is already on the server.

Also, there is a modified(+) status: it means that after the merge brought the file you made some changes to it. So, it must be checked to be committed with this new changes.

The deleted(+) status means that the file was brought from the merge but you later deleted it. It must be commited.

The plus sign tells you that a file or folder has been scheduled to be added to version control.

Edit for updated question:

"The (+) means that TortoiseSVN was able to figure out the item's history, and has added the history metadata to this commit." Meaning you can trace the state of the file in which it used to exist, hence version control. Taken from this post.

More info on status.