Diminutives and Augmentatives in The Languages of The World

Lexis 6: “Diminutives and Augmentatives in the Languages of the World” 1
Lexis
E-Journal in English Lexicology
Director: Pr. Denis Jamet
http://screcherche.univ-lyon3.fr/lexis/
Diminutives and Augmentatives

in the Languages of the World
Editors in charge of this issue:
Lívia Körtvélyessy
Pavel Stekauer
P.J. Šafárik University, Košice, Slovakia
March 2011
© Lexis 2011
2 Lexis 6: “Diminutives and Augmentatives in the Languages of the World”
Contents
Lívia Körtvélyessy & Pavel Stekauer (P.J. Šafárik University, Košice, Slovakia)
Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 3
Papers .................................................................................................................................. 5
Nicola Grandi (University of Bologna, Italy)

Renewal and Innovation in the Emergence of Indo-European Evaluative Morphology ...... 5
Lívia Körtvélyessy (P.J. Šafárik University, Košice, Slovakia)

A Cross-Linguistic Research into Phonetic Iconicity ……………….. ................................ 27
Lucia M. Tovena (Université Paris 7, France)

When Small Is Many in the Event Domain ........................................................................... 41
Ada Böhmerová (Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovak Republic)

A Systemic View with Some Cross-Linguistic Considerations ........................................... 59
Clement K.I. Appah (Lancaster University, England) & Nana Aba Appiah Amfo
(University of Ghana, Ghana)
The Morphopragmatics of the Diminutive Morpheme (-ba/-wa) in Akan ........................... 85
© Lexis 2011
Introduction
When Scalise [1984] came up with an idea of evaluative morphology as the third level of
morphology, distinct from both derivational morphology and inflectional morphology, he
gave an important impetus for research in this field. While it was demonstrated by, for
example, Stump [1993] and Katamba [1993] that Scalise’s assumption is language-specific
rather than of universal nature, Scalise succeeded in pointing out the importance of this field
of morphology. Research into various languages of the world has revealed an unequal status
of morphological diminutives and augmentatives on the inflection – derivation scale.
At the same time, our cross-linguistic data shows that evaluative morphology does not
play the same role in each language. About one-third of the languages of the world can do
without any morphological instruments to express the meaning of diminutiveness and/or
augmentativeness. On the other hand, Slavic languages and also languages like Slavey, Wichí,
and West Greenlandic abound in evaluative affixes. In addition, it has been shown (Universals
Archive, Stekauer, Valera, Kortvelyessy, to appear) that the category of diminutiveness is
morphologically much more widespread than that of augmentativeness, which has been
captured as an implicational tendency saying that if a language has augmentatives it has
diminutives.
There are many not yet resolved issues concerning diminutives and augmentatives,
including, inter alia, the scope of evaluative morphology in terms of semantic categories;
synchronic and diachronic aspects of research; evaluative morphology from the perspective of
langue and parole; the relation between the morphological and the genetic type of language,
on one hand, and the way of expressing evaluative categories, on the other; the typology of
diminutives and augmentatives, and the related cross-linguistic aspects of research; evaluative
morphology and word-classes; phonetic symbolism in relation to the categories of
diminutiveness and augmentativeness; homonymy/polysemy of evaluative affixes;
productivity of morphological processes (suffixation, prefixation, compounding,
reduplication, etc.) used for the formation of diminutives/augmentatives; evaluative
morphology and recursiveness; etc.
The articles in this volume aim to discuss some of these open questions, and thus
contribute to this intriguing field of linguistics.
Lívia Körtvélyessy
Pavel Stekauer
© Lexis 2011
© Lexis 2011
Renewal and Innovation in the Emergence of Indo-European

Evaluative Morphology∗
Nicola Grandi1
Abstract
A diachronic survey in the field of the so-called evaluative morphology in some branches of
the Indoeuropean family (above all Romance and Slavonic languages and Greek) reveals two
different tendencies. On the one side suffixes that displayed a diminutive value in the earliest
stages of these languages do not correspond to present-day diminutive suffixes. On the other
side, Proto-Indoeuropean before and Latin and Ancient Greek then lacked augmentative
suffixes at all, while Romance languages and Modern Greek have at their disposal some of
them. So, diminutives seem a dynamic and unstable linguistic strategy, which, in the course of
ages, has undergone a wide (cyclic?) renewal: the semantic function has been kept on, while
the formal strategies to express it have changed. Instead, augmentatives seem to be the result
of an innovation: to a sure point, a new category has been introduced and each language has
had to find the means to express it. In a diachronic perspective, augmentatives seem to be a
more steady linguistic strategy than diminutives. In this paper I intend at reconstructing, going
backwards, the genesis of some Romance, Slavonic, and Greek diminutive and augmentative
suffixes in order to single out both their semantic archetypes and possible common stages
recurring in their evolutive processes.
Keywords: diminutive suffixes – augmentative suffixes – dynamic typology – areal

convergence
∗
I thank Emanuele Banfi, Sandro Caruana and Fabio Montermini, who read and commented a previous version
of this paper.
1
University of Bologna, Italy: nicola.grandi@unibo.it
© Lexis 2011
1. Theoretical background
A diachronic survey in the field of the so-called evaluative morphology2 of modern Indo-
European languages spoken in Europe reveals two different tendencies. On the one side
suffixes that displayed a diminutive value in the earliest stages of these languages usually do
not correspond to present-day diminutive suffixes. For example, actual Romance diminutive
suffixes did not have a diminutive meaning in Latin, while Latin diminutive suffixes have lost
this value or are not used any longer in Romance languages. On the other side, both Proto-
Indo-European and ancient Indo-European languages (attested or reconstructed: Latin,
Ancient Greek, Proto-Slavonic, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Celtic, etc.) did not have augmentative
suffixes at all, while many modern languages have some of them at their disposal (this is the
case, for example, of most Romance and Slavonic languages and of Modern Greek).
So, in the history of Indo-European evaluative morphology there seems to have been an
interaction between a process of renewal, concerning diminutives, and a process of
innovation, concerning augmentatives.
In this paper I intend to reconstruct, by investigating the issue from a historical point of
view, the genesis of some Indo-European diminutive and augmentative suffixes, in order to
single out both their semantic archetypes and possible common stages recurring in their
development. My focus will be mainly on Romance languages, Slavonic languages and
Greek, but data from Celtic, Germanic and Baltic languages will also be presented and
discussed. Some typologically different and non-Indo-European languages, such as Berber,
Vietnamese, Malay, Thai and Hmong, will be referred to in order to provide terms of
comparison.
The theoretical framework that, in my opinion, provides the best tools for a satisfactory
explanation of the intricate history of evaluative morphology is the well-known ‘dynamic
typology’. As suggested by Greenberg [1969, 1978, 1995], the linguistic change cannot just
be seen as a mere sequence of origins and losses of single linguistic items or functions (where
“origins seem inherently more interesting” Greenberg [1995: 149]), but as the symptom of a
slow and gradual shift from a typological state to another one; in such a view, origins and
losses are equally important.
In my opinion, the vicissitudes of Indo-European evaluative morphology represent a
promising field for the assumptions of this theoretical framework.
In the following sections of this paper, after a few introductory remarks (§ 2), we will
carry out an in-depth diachronic investigation of augmentative (§ 3) and diminutive (§ 4)
suffixes of the previously mentioned Indo-European languages. Then, these data will be
compared to data from non-Indo-European languages (§ 5), in order to establish whether
universal or at least widely shared tendencies in the development of evaluative morphology
do exist or not (§ 6).
2. Stability and frequency in evaluative morphology

If, as we stated in § 1, the history of evaluative morphology is to be explained within a
typological approach, we must select the types that occur among the languages included in my
sample. By means of the combination of the two parameters chosen for this analysis, that is
2
In this paper, by the label ‘evaluative morphology’ I will refer only to its descriptive/quantitative side
(represented by diminutive and augmentative affixes), whereas the qualitative side (that is pejorative vs.
‘meliorative’ affixes) will not be considered (cf. Grandi [2002a: 27-35] for internal organization of evaluative
morphology).
© Lexis 2011
‘presence/absence of diminutives’ and ‘presence/absence of augmentatives’, four possible

types can be singled out:
(1) Type A: presence of diminutives; absence of augmentatives;

Type B: presence of both diminutives and augmentatives;
Type C: absence of both diminutives and augmentatives;
Type D: absence of diminutives; presence of augmentatives;
However, it has been noted that “augmentatives represent a marked category opposed to the
unmarked category of diminutives” (Dressler / Merlini Barbaresi [1994: 430]). The
markedness of augmentatives is confirmed by their being cross-linguistically less common
than diminutives. This situation has been represented by an implicational correlation, which is
supposed to be universal:3 augmentatives ⊃ diminutives (cf., among others, Haas [1972]).
This correlation must be read as follows: if a language has some morphological devices to
form augmentatives, then it must have morphological diminutives too, but not vice versa. By
means of this implication, the type D in (1) is ruled out. So, as to descriptive/quantitative
evaluative morphology, only types A, B and C can actually occur. A survey of the
morphological inventories of modern Indo-European languages of Europe supports this
assumption:
(2) Romance languages Portuguese type B

Spanish type B
Catalan type B
Occitan type A
French type A (> B?)4
Italian type B
Sardinian type A
Rumanian type B
Germanic languages English type C (?)5

German type A
Dutch type A
Swedish type C
Danish type C
Celtic languages Breton type A
Irish type A
Scottish Gaelic type A
Welsh type A
Albanian Albanian type B
Greek Greek type B
3
To my knowledge, no counterexample to this state of affairs has been found yet.
4
The notation A (> B?) indicates that in French an augmentative suffix (-ard; cf. meulard ‘big millstone’ <
meule ‘millstone’) is gaining ground, but its occurrences are still too sporadic to place French in type B.
Furthermore, in some dialects spoken in the Southern part of France a few feminine augmentatives are attested
(see § 3.1.2). However, the list presented in (2) refers to standard languages and dialectal variations are not taken
into account.
5
The question mark indicates that English displays some diminutive suffixes (for example -let: piglet, booklet),
but all of them seem to be completely unproductive.
© Lexis 2011
Slavonic languages Slovene type A (> B?)6

Serbo-Croat type B
Bulgarian type B
Macedonian type B
Russian type B
Polish type B
Czech type B
Baltic languages Latvian type B
Lithuanian type B (cf. Grandi [2003])
So, modern Indo-European languages of Europe are equally distributed between type A and
type B, the only exceptions being Scandinavian languages and possibly English. In this sense,
Europe reproduces on a smaller scale a worldwide situation: a quick glance at diminutives and
augmentatives in languages other than Indo-European shows that types A and B are largely
prevalent. For example, the great majority of Afroasiatic languages (except for Berber,
Maltese and Moroccan Arabic) are of type A; almost all Bantu languages can be assigned to
type B; most Sino-Tibetan languages are of type C.
If we consider diachronic aspects, the picture changes roughly, since in ancient Europe
type B was not attested at all. Latin, Ancient Greek, Common Slavonic, Common Germanic
and Common Celtic can all be assigned to type A and in this respect they are consistent with
Proto-Indo-European. In fact, Proto-Indo-European displayed two morphemes, the well-
known *-lo- and *-ko-, with a possible diminutive meaning, but had no morphological
augmentative.
Within the theoretical framework of the so-called ‘dynamic typology’ the distribution of
linguistic types is determined by two independent, but complementary factors: stability and
frequency. The former indicates “the probability that a language which is in a particular state
will exit this state”, while the latter indicates “the probability that a language will enter a
particular state” (Greenberg [1995: 151]). In other words, a high degree of stability
corresponds to a probable likelihood for a state to be preserved by a language or by a group of
languages; a high degree of frequency corresponds to a probable likelihood for a state to be
assumed by a language or by a group of languages.
Stability and frequency determine the areal and genetic spread of linguistic states: a stable
state will show a uniform diffusion within genetic groups, since it is usually inherited from a
common ancestor, whereas a frequent state will tend to be areally widespread, but sporadic
within linguistic families.
If we read the list in (2) in the light of these two parameters, we may note that diminutives
exhibit a high value both for stability and frequency: they are areally widespread and common
to related languages.7 However, in this case we can assert that wide areal diffusion is
reasonably a consequence of the fact that they have been inherited from a common ancestor
(for example, we can state that diminutive suffixes are attested in all Romance languages
because the semantic category ‘diminutive’ has been inherited from Latin; the same holds for
the Slavonic group). So, as far as diminutives are concerned, it is stability that plays a crucial
role. On the contrary, augmentatives are unstable, but quite frequent: their occurrences are
regular in clear cut areas (see, for example, the Ibero-Romance zone, the Balkans, etc.), but
not among related languages (for example, only some Romance languages have augmentative
6
As in the case of French, the notation A (> B?) indicates that in Slovene a few augmentative suffixes are
probably being grammaticalized, but their occurrences are still too sporadic to place Slovene in type B.
7
According to Greenberg [1995: 152] the combination of the highest stability and the highest frequency produce
universality. In fact, diminutives have often been considered as a ‘quasi-universal’.
© Lexis 2011
suffixes: the semantic category ‘augmentative’ has not been inherited from Latin). So, in this
case frequency clearly prevails over stability.
In my opinion, the use of the two parameters of stability and frequency has relevant
consequences also for the investigation of the history of linguistic states, allowing us to make
strong predictions about the nature of linguistic changes by means of which they have been
produced. My hypothesis is that it is plausible for a state which is widespread both areally and
genetically and which is shared by the great majority of the members of many linguistic
families (in other words, for a stable and frequent state) to be the consequence of a
development which always proceeds along the same course (i.e. the same starting point, the
same intermediate stages, the same result), independently of the genetic relationships among
the languages involved and of their geographical position.
On the other hand, it is plausible for a state which is attested in different and not
contiguous areas, in which unrelated languages are spoken (that is, for a frequent, but unstable
state) to be the consequence of many areal-specific processes.
To sum up, my hypothesis is that the genesis of linguistic states in which stability is
prevalent tends to be conditioned by very general typological tendencies, while the
development of states in which frequency is prevalent is significantly constrained by areal
factors.
If this is true, by referring to evaluative morphology, we can hypothesize that the
development (and the subsequent renewal) of diminutive suffixes has taken place according to
a unique general typological tendency in all their occurrences, while augmentative suffixes
have emerged following different and areal-specific evolutive paths. The data we will present
in the next sections seem to support this hypothesis.
3. Augmentative suffixes in Indo-European languages of Europe

The list in (2) shows that among the modern Indo-European languages of Europe most
Romance languages, many Slavonic languages, Baltic languages and Greek have undergone
the process of innovation which has led to the emergence of augmentative suffixes. In
Romance and Slavonic languages and in Greek four different evolutive paths are attested.
Two of them occur both in the great majority of Romance languages and in Greek (cf.
§§ 3.1.1 and 3.1.2); one involves just a few Romance languages (§ 3.1.3), and one seems to be
peculiar to the Slavonic region (§ 3.2).
3.1. Romance languages and Greek
As we indicated before, in Romance languages (with the exception of Gallo-Romance

languages and Sardinian) and in Greek, three different semantic shifts seem to have triggered
the development of augmentative suffixes. Two of them are common to most Romance
languages and Greek; a third one took place only in Portuguese, in Spanish and in Southern
Italian.
3.1.1. Agentive / pejorative > augmentative
In this section I will draw a parallel sketch of the evolution of the most widespread
Romance augmentative suffixes (It. -one in gattone ‘big cat’, Sp. -ón in hombrón ‘hulk of a
man’, Port. -ão in ceirão ‘large woven basket’), which are the outcome of a single Latin
© Lexis 2011
suffix, -(i)o, -(i)ōnis, and of the Modern Greek augmentative suffix -ς (κεφαλς ‘big
head’), which is the result of two closely related Ancient Greek suffixes, -ς and - ας.8
As we saw in § 2, neither in Latin nor in Ancient Greek ‘typical’ augmentative suffixes
were attested. However, both Latin and Ancient Greek had some very productive derivational
suffixes at their disposal, Lat. -(i)o, -(i)ōnis and A.Gr. -ς and - ας, attested in different
formations with different semantic readings. In the great majority of their occurrences, these
suffixes were used to form masculine animate nouns designating human beings with a
particular, often physical, characteristic or with the habit of performing an action in an
exaggerated way:
(3) a. N[-anim]-PEJ > N[+ hum].M9

Lat. gānĕ(a)-o
tavern:N[- anim].F-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’guzzler, a dissolute person’
ment(um)-o
chin:N[- anim].NTR-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’person with protruding chin’
A.Gr. κορυζ(α)-ς
snot, mucus from the nose:N[- anim].F-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’whipper-snapper’
πωγων- ας
beard:N[- anim].M-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’bearded person’
b. V-PEJ > N[+ hum].M

Lat. err(āre)-o
to ramble, to wander about:V-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’rambler, vagabond, wanderer; deserter’
mand(ĕre)-o
to bite, to chew:V-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’hearty eater’
A.Gr. καταφαγ(εν)-ς
to eat, to devour, to squander:V-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’squanderer’
c. A-PEJ > N[+ hum].M

Lat. mīr(us)-ĭo
wonderful, marvellous:A-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’monster’
miscell(us)-io
mixed, various:A-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’muddler, bungler’
A.Gr. γυναικ(εος)- ας
womanly, feminine:A-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’womanish man’
The semantic reading of data in (3) can be brought back to the paraphrase ‘one who
is/makes/has X to a high degree’. The use of these suffixes in onomastics, and specifically in
the formation of cognomina, proper names of mask-characters and nicknames, is a
consequence of their pejorative and caricatural meaning:
(4) Latin:
a. cognomina:
Nās(us)-o
nose:N[- anim].M-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’Nasone’ (lit. ‘who has a particular nose’)
pēs > Pĕd-o
‘foot’ foot:N[- anim].M-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’Pedone’ (lit. ‘flat-footed person’)
8
In this section we summarize the picture already presented in Grandi [2002b], to which we refer the reader for
details.
9
Latin data are from Lazzeroni [1963] and Gaide [1988]; Ancient Greek data are from Chantraine [1933].
© Lexis 2011
b. proper names of mask-characters and actors:

Bucc(a)-o
mouth; cheek:N[- anim].F-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’Bucco’ (a character of fabulae Atellanae; lit. ‘silly, insolent’)
Turp(is)-ĭo
ugly, repulsive:A-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’Turpio’ (name of a comic actor)10
(5) Ancient Greek:

a. nicknames:
Μηνδωρος Μηνς
Νικοµδης Νικοµς
b. epithets:
Λοξ(ς)- ας
oblique, ambiguous:A-PEJ.N[+ anim].M / ’oblique’ (epithet of Apollon; probably because of the
ambiguity of his oracles)
c. Proper Names:
Αµυν(α)- ας
defence:N[- anim].F-PEJ.N[+ hum].M / ’Aminia’ (lit. ‘ready to defend himself’)
The transfer to the evaluative function is intuitively clear: the suffix no longer designates the
possessor of an unusual property, but it identifies the property itself.11 So, a word such as
Latin căpĭto (from the noun caput ‘head’) originally indicated a ‘big-headed person’ and,
then, in Late Latin, just a ‘big head’. So, Romance and Modern Greek augmentative suffixes
are the result of derivational suffixes originally used to form animate (often human) nouns
with an agentive / pejorative / caricatural meaning; this original meaning is still preserved in
modern languages, besides the ‘new’ augmentative meaning:
(6) a. original pejorative/caricatural meaning b. new augmentative meaning

It. fif(a)-one barc(a)-one
fear:N[- anim].F-AUG.N[+ hum].M boat:N[- anim].F-AUG.N[- anim].M
‘a cowardly person’ ‘big boat’
Sp. com(er)-il-on caj(a)-ón
to eat:V-INTF-AUG.N[+ hum].M case:N[- anim].F-AUG.N[- anim].M
‘hearty eater’ ‘large case’
Port. beat(o)-ão aban(o)-ão
blessed:A-AUG.N[+ hum].M shock:N[-anim].M-AUG.N[-anim].M
‘great hypocrite’ ‘great shock’
M.Gr. καθ στ(ος)-ακας κλεφτ(ης)-αρς
seated:A-AUG.N[+ hum].M thief:N[+ hum].M-AUG.N[+ hum].M
‘lazy-bones’ ‘big thief’
3.1.2. Collective > augmentative
In Modern Greek and in some Romance languages (the languages spoken in the Western
side of Roman zone, assuming the traditional and conventional division based on the Spezia-
10
As usual, a particular characteristic gives rise to a nickname that afterwards can ‘crystallize’; in this way it no
longer designates a single person, but his (or her) entire family.
11
For Latin, cf. Gaide [1988: 126]: “[l]e sème augmentatif (« virtuel ») que présente le suffixe dans ce type est à
l’origine d’une évolution fonctionnelle du suffixe du latin aux langues romanes: dans la Romania du Sud après
base substantivale le suffixe a généralement une valeur augmentative (de « virtuel » le sème augmentatif est
devenu « dénotatif »; la valeur de « caractérisation » s’est effacée)”.
© Lexis 2011
Rimini line) the augmentative meaning can be expressed simply by changing a masculine or
neuter noun into feminine:
(7) 12 a. M.Gr. κεφλι > κεφλα

head:NTR head:F / ’big head’
φ δι > φιδρα
snake: NTR snake:F / ’big snake’
b. It. buco > buca
hole:M hole:F / ’cave, hollow pit’
fiasco > fiasca
13
flask:M flask:F / ’large flask’
14
c. Fr. pré > prée (Western French)
meadow:M meadow:F / ’wide meadow’
sac > sache (Central French)
bag:M bag:F / ’large-sized bag’
d. Cat. pas > passa
step:M step:F / ’long step
plat > plata
plate:M plate:M / large plate’
e. Sp. cesto > cesta
basket:M basket:F / ’large hand basket for dirty linen’
garbanzo > garbanza
chick-pea:M chick-pea:F / ’large type of chick pea’
f. Port. rato > rata
mouse:M mouse:F / ’rat’
caldeiro > caldeira
cauldron:M cauldron:F / ’large boiler’
As to Romance forms, Kahane and Kahane-Toole [1948-1949: 154-155] state that

as a rule, the quantitative -o ~ -a contrast applies to strikingly three-dimensional objects. […].
Since the -o ~ -a relation as an expression of sex contrast refers particularly to human beings, it is
never used to express difference in size between human beings. It is, in general, limited to the
inanimate. It may express difference in size between animals only where difference in sex is
unrecognizable or irrelevant or where the female is larger than the male.
If we focus on Modern Greek data, the origin of feminine augmentatives becomes evident.
The Greek augmentative suffix -α is characterized by three specific properties:
i] it forms only feminine nouns;

ii] it cannot be used to form animate nouns from inanimate nouns, adjectives or verbs;
iii] it is frequently (but not exclusively) attached to neuter nouns.
These properties, as well as the phonological form of the suffix, can be traced back to
Ancient Greek and Latin neuter plural endings. As it is well known, the original meaning of
12
Data of Romance languages are from Kahane / Kahane-Toole [1948-1949] and Volpati [1955].
13
As for Italian, cf. also the very widespread couple pennello masc. ‘brush’ / pennellessa fem. ‘flat brush’ and
the following dialectal forms: kortella ‘large kitchen knife’ < kurtello ‘knife’ (Pisa, Tuscany); rastela ‘broad
rake’ < rasté ‘rake’ (Alessandria, Piedmont), badíla ‘the road’s worker large shovel’ < badíl ‘shovel’ (Milan and
Cremona, Lombardy), etc.
14
Dialectal varieties.
© Lexis 2011
these endings was collective.15 It is plausible for collective to have been the semantic
archetype of present-day feminine augmentatives, since these two meanings are undoubtedly
very close. Moreover, a parallel survey of evaluative morphology and category of number
reveals a wider and more systematic interaction between them. The synchronic link between
diminutives and singulatives has been stressed quite often: there exists a strong cross-
linguistic tendency to express these two meanings by means of the same formal item.16 In this
picture, a relation between augmentatives and collectives would certainly be feasible (Cf.
Grandi [2001]).
3.1.3. Relational > augmentative
In Latin the relational suffix -ācĕus (a, um) was productively used to form adjectives
indicating similarity, material source or provenience, and approximation:
(8) charta > chartācĕus (a, um)

‘paper’ ‘made of paper’
folium > foliācĕus (a, um)
‘leaf’ ‘leaf-shaped’
Sometimes this semantic value is still preserved among Romance languages, but if this is
the case, the suffix does not undergo the expected phonological changes and exhibits a
‘learned shape’ (that is, a similarity with the Latin suffix: It. cartaceo ‘made of paper’; the
regular Italian form of the suffix might be -accio).
According to Rohlfs [1969: 366], the idea of similarity gave rise to the pejorative meaning
which is largely prevalent in Italian words ending in -accio (tavolaccio ‘plank-bed’,
ragazzaccio ‘naughty boy’, figuraccia ‘(to make) a bad impression’). Rholfs states also that
the suffix “può esprimere – oggettivamente – qualcosa di rozzo o di più grande, oppure –
soggettivamente – ciò che è meno buono.” In this way, he explains augmentative forms such
as Port. animalaço ‘big animal’ from animal and barbaça ‘long beard’ from barba or Cat.
calorassa ‘strong heat’ from calor ‘heat’. A similar semantic reading occurs in some dialects
of Southern Italy: canazzu (‘big dog’ – Calabria), vuccazza (‘big mouth’ – Calabria), festazza
(‘great party’ – Naples), doddazza (‘big dowry’ – Abruzzo).
Augmentative outcomes of Latin -ācĕus (a, um) are quite rare in the Romance area as they
are attested only in Ibero-Romance zone and in the Southern part of Italy.
3.2. Slavonic languages: locative > augmentative
Unlike Romance languages and Greek, which make use of few augmentative suffixes,
Slavonic languages display rich and complex inventories of augmentative suffixes. For the
topic being discussed in this paper, the most interesting are the related suffixes -ište/ -išče/-
isko, the occurrences of which can be extensively traced along all the documentary tradition
of Slavonic languages.
According to Vaillant [1974: 422], these suffixes are the outcomes of a single Common
Slavonic locative suffix: “en vieux slave ce suffixe se tire en principe de substantifs et fournit
15
See Heilmann [1963: 149]: “La desinenza -α del nom. voc. acc. neutro (ζυγ, µ%τρα) rappresenta lo sviluppo
greco di uno -*∂ i-europeo […] che […] caratterizzava dei collettivi.”
16
We must be very cautious about projecting this synchonic generalization on a diachronic dimension. In other
words, it is not to be taken for granted that singulative derives from diminutives or vice versa. For details see
Cuzzolin [1998].
© Lexis 2011
des noms qui indiquent le lieu.” Locative meaning was widely attested in Old Church
Slavonic (cf. 9) and has been retained by modern Slavonic languages (cf. 10):
(9)17 OCS sód(ŭ)-ište

judgment-LOC / ’court of law’
grob(ŭ)-ište
grave-LOC / ’cemetery’
(10) Rus. gúl’bišče

‘(public) walk’
Slov. brodíšče
‘place from which ferry-boats pass’
But in modern Slavonic languages such as Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croat, Russian,

Polish and Czech the main and most frequent semantic value of the suffixes -ište/-išče/-isko is
augmentative:
(11) Blg. det(é)-ište

child-AUG / ’big child’
žen(á)-íšte
woman-AUG / ’big, hefty woman’
Mac. čovek > čoveč-ište
‘man’ man-AUG / ’huge man’
It is not easy to understand how the augmentative meaning might have developed from the
original locative interpretation. In fact, it is necessary to point out that, unlike the semantic
shifts we have seen in §§ 3.1.1, 3.1.2, and 3.1.3, a link between locative and augmentative
meaning can hardly be found.18 Furthermore, in available records, the ‘new’ augmentative
meaning seems to have emerged rather abruptly, as it had not been preceded by forms in
which both semantic readings are possible.19
Therefore, since it is impossible to single out the intermediate stages of this evolutive
path, we have to limit ourselves to focusing on its areal-specific character: in fact a shift from
a locative meaning to an augmentative does not seem to have occurred in other Indo-
European languages.
The data presented so far seem to support the hypothesis presented in § 2: in the history of
a typological state in which frequency clearly prevails over stability areal constraints play a
crucial role. The main augmentative suffixes attested in the European languages of Indo-
European family are the result of different areal-specific evolutive paths, as can be seen in the
following map:
17
Nandriş [19652: 88].
18
We can put forward the hypothesis that a possible link between locative and augmentative meaning is
represented by place names that designate a place in which something happens in an exaggerated way or in
which some ‘entities’ are present in large amounts.
19
On the contrary, as in the case of the semantic change presented in § 3.1.1, a form such as Late Latin căpĭto
may be interpreted both in an ‘old’ agentive/pejorative way, (that is ‘big-headed person’), as well as in a ‘new’
augmentative way (that is ‘big head’).
© Lexis 2011
(12) Lat
Ir Sct Lit
Eng Pol Rus
Grm Cz
Fr
Slov
Port Scr
It Rum
Sp Cat Mac
Srd Alb Blg
M.Gr
agentive / pejorative > augmentative
collective > augmentative
relational > augmentative
locative > augmentative
4. Diminutive suffixes in Indo-European languages of Europe

According to the list drawn in (2), diminutive suffixes display a high degree of stability in
the terms provided by Greenberg: they are uniformly widespread in all genetic groups we
have investigated, with the partial exception of languages belonging to the northern branch of
the Germanic family.
The issue of the origin of diminutives has been widely discussed by scholars. Today, the
great majority of them agree in asserting that animate nouns have played a crucial role in the
development of diminutive suffixes. Nevertheless, the origin of the real semantic archetype is
still unclear and so is the procedure by means of which the diminutive value developed from
it. Two assumptions seem prevalent in the literature: on the one hand, some scholars place the
hypocoristic value as the starting point of the entire process; on the other hand, other scholars
consider the designation of the genealogical relation between father and child (in the case of
human beings) and/or between the adult and the young (in the case of animals) to be the
semantic archetype of the diminutive value. Data from Romance languages (§ 4.1), from
Greek (§ 4.2), and from Slavonic languages (§ 4.3) give evidence in favor of this second
hypothesis: the shift in meaning of It. -ino (in tavolino ‘small table’), Gr. -κι (in λαθκι ‘a
pardonable error’), Blg. -ec/-íca (in brátec ‘little brother’ / zeníca ‘little woman’), etc. towards
the current diminutive value took its first steps in the designation of the genealogical relation
between father and son and between the adult and the young. If we assume the meaning
‘child/young of…’ to be the semantic archetype, the emergence of the diminutive value seems
easy to explain. In this picture, the expressive or hypocoristic nuances are not to be considered
as original, but as a secondary consequence of this semantic change. As we will show, a swift
glance both at other Indo-European groups (Germanic and Baltic), and to non-Indo-European
languages (see § 5) seems to support this hypothesis.
© Lexis 2011
4.1. Romance languages
Some of the most widely used Romance diminutive suffixes, It. -ino, sp. –ín, port. -inho,
are the outcome of a single Latin suffix, -īnus, the various semantic readings of which are
usually traced back to a vague relational value (cănīnus ‘pertaining to the dog’; vespertīnus
‘happening in the evening’, Sābātīnus ‘of Sabate, a town in Etruria’, etc.).20
According to Butler [1971: 22-23], clear traces of the semantic reading ‘young X, child X’
can be discovered among the very first occurrences of the suffix, above all in its use in
anthroponomy:
(13) Agrippīna
‘the daughter of M. Vipsanius Agrippa’
Messālīnus
21
‘borne by M. Valerius Messalla Messalinus, son of M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus’
Another very interesting form in this respect is amitīnus ‘cousin’, whose literal meaning is
‘son of paternal aunt’, from amita (‘paternal aunt, father’s sister’).
Hakamies [1951: 9] states that “l’adulte est le prototype d’une espèce; par conséquent ce
qui ou celui qui ressemble à l’espèce sans atteindre toutefois au prototype ne peut être que
plus petit”; in this way he identifies the link between the original relational meaning and the
diminutive interpretation.22 The derivational history of a form such as Lat. castŏrīnus / It.
castorino can be represented as follows:
14) Latin Italian

castor]N > castŏrīnus]A > castŏrīnus]N> castorino]N
‘beaver’ ‘resembling a beaver’ ‘young beaver’ ‘small/little beaver’
In the form at the end of this sequence, any reference to age has been lost.
On the formal ground, this semantic shift comes about by means of a process of
conversion (noun > adjective) placed between the second and the third stage of the sequence
in (14).
As always happens, a linguistic change spreads slowly and step by step. Therefore, it is
not surprising to find occurrences of both the two semantic functions involved in the change
in the same synchronic stage. So, for example, in Italian spoken approximately in the XII-XIII
centuries, the suffix -ino was still attested both in anthroponomy (15) and in diminutive forms
of animate nouns (16):
(15) i. ‘Giovannino f. Giovani’23 [sic] and ‘Lanfra(n)chino […]di s(er)

Lanfra(n)co’
Memoriale dei camarlinghi del Ceppo dei poveri di Prato (1296-1305)
ii. ‘Ciampolino Ciampoli’
A document from Siena written between 1294 and 1375
iii. ‘Masino di Maso’
Quaderno dei creditori di Taddeo dell’Antella e compagni (1345)
20
For an exhaustive survey of Latin outcomes of Indo-European denominal suffixes *-ĭno-, *-īno- and *-eyno-
/ *-oyno- cf. Butler [1971].
21
Data and translations from Oxford Latin Dictionary (cf. Glare [1982]).
22
Cf. also Rohlfs [1969: 412]: “ciò che è meno compiuto è più piccolo”.
23
F. = son.
© Lexis 2011
iv. ‘Mannellino de’Mannelli’

in D.Velluti, La cronica domestica (1367-70)
(16) i. ‘Onde vedemo li parvuli desiderare massimamente un pomo; e poi, più

procedendo, desiderare uno augellino.’
Dante, Convivio (IV, cap. 12), 1304-7
ii. ‘A la perfine, vinto per prieghi, acconsentìo al disiderio del re e
battezzando il fanciullo, tacendo tutti quelli ch’erano presenti, il
fanciullino rispuose: “Amen”.’
Leggenda Aurea (XIV sec)
iii. ‘e, per più loro sicurtade, Medea ne menò seco uno suo fratellino:
onde ella, essendo perseguitata dal padre, sì l’uccise.’
Ceffi, Epistole eroiche (1320/30)
iv. ‘Renaldino filiolo dama Avìs molie fu Piero Cristiano di Bari[, deta,]
(e) la deta dama Avìs (e) Piero dela Porta, piagi, dieno dare xii li. (e)
x s. di p(ro)ve.’
Documento senese (1263)
But if we turn to modern Italian, we observe that, in combination with animate nouns, the
diminutive value of -ino has almost completely replaced the old meaning,24 which is
preserved only by some animal names (for example: giraffino ‘young giraffe’, leoncino
‘young lion’, etc.).
The absence of Latin words in –īnus with a possible diminutive meaning demonstrates
that the semantic shift ‘child/young of X’ > ‘small/little X’ took place quite recently, certainly
after the linguistic division of Romània.25
4.2. Greek
The most widespread diminutive suffix of Modern Greek, -κι (cf. &νθρωπκι ‘little
man’; γραµµατκι ‘little letter’; κουταλκι ‘small knife’) is etymologically linked to the
Ancient Greek suffix - ον, which displayed, among other functions, a diminutive value (cf.
σκυµν ον ‘little cub’; ταιν ον ‘small band’; σαγ ον ‘small cloak’).26
According to Chantraine [1933: 64], the different semantic readings of Ancient Greek
words ending in - ον can be satisfactorily traced back to the unique paraphrase “ce qui
appartient à la catégorie de…”, which he considers to be the starting point of the semantic
shift that led to the diminutive value, since “ce qui ressemble à une chose peut lui être
inférieur, ou être plus petit”.
Once again the very first alteration of the original relational meaning has plausibly been
triggered by the occurrence of the suffix in combination with animate nouns, that is to
designate living beings that are smaller (therefore similar) to the prototype of their species just
because they are younger than it. In this case, neuter gender also plays a role: “c’est surtout le
genre inanimé du suffixe qui favorisait cette nouvelle évolution. Un nom neutre désigne
volontiers de petits êtres, considérés comme «une petite chose»” (Chantraine [1933: 64]).27
24
In modern Italian the diminutive form of a family name has always an expressive or hypocoristic meaning.
25
The absence of diminutive outcomes of -īnus in Rumanian suggests that the semantic change came about when
the Latin spoken in the Balkans was already an autonomous linguistic system, that is out of the direct influence
of Rome. Cf. Grandi [2003] for details on the relative chronology of the events.
26
Data from Buck & Petersen [1944]; translations from Liddell & Scott [1968].
27
See also Zubin & Köpcke [1986]: “the sex-associated genders are used to identify fully differentiated taxa that
have concrete imageability including overall shape and specifiable parts, while neut-gender is used for taxa that
© Lexis 2011
It is not easy to find traces of the intermediate stages of this semantic shift in the most
ancient texts of Greek literature, since evaluative morphology was practically unacceptable in
epic and lyric poetry as well as in tragedies. Nonetheless, if we glance through a list of the
very first occurrences of - ον, we find many animate nouns the interpretation of which may be
traced in the paraphrases ‘young X’ and ‘child of X’:
(17) κρη > κορ ον

‘girl’ ‘young, little girl’
θυγτηρ > θυγτριον
‘daughter’ ‘young, little daughter or girl’
&λ'πηξ > &λωπ%κιον
‘fox’ ‘fox cub’
δ%λφαξ > δελφκιον
‘pig’ ‘suckling pig’
So, as in the case of Romance languages, even in Greek a suffix with a primary relational
meaning begins to designate young living beings and then develops a plain diminutive value.
This evolutional path seems to occur once again in the course which led Ancient Greek to
evolve into Modern Greek. A form such ad δελφκιον is the trait d’union between ‘ancient’
diminutives in - ον and ‘modern’ diminutives in -κι. The internal structure of such a form
underwent a process of reanalysis (#δελφκ+ιον# > #δελφ+κιον #), which gave rise to a
new suffix -κιον, “half diminutive and half radical” (Jannaris [1897: 292]). When this new
suffix spread and overruled the ancient diminutive - ον, the expressive power of which had
been weakened by the extensive use, its first function was that “of forming pet names and
nicknames” (Jannaris [1897: 293]).
4.3. Slavonic languages
The most ancient Slavonic suffixes displaying a diminutive value (-ec, –ĭce and –ĭica /
-ica, masculine, neuter and feminine respectively)28 can all be traced back to the Common
Slavonic suffix *-iko-, which Meillet [1965: 361] describes as follows:
on forme des substantifs désignant des personnes, au masculin, au moyen d’un suffixe *-iko-, qui a pris en
slave la forme -ĭce-. […] Le suffixe -ĭcĭ- figure souvent dans les noms d’êtres jeunes: agnę […]: agnĭcĭ
«agneau»; telę: telĭcĭ «veau»; etc.; on notera la formation mladěnĭcĭ «enfant», de mladŭ «tendre, jeune». A
cet emploi se rattache la formation de diminutifs comme gradĭcĭ «bourg», de gradŭ «ville».
So, Meillet assigns a crucial role to animate nouns in the emergence of the diminutive
value of these suffixes. The semantic shift pointed out by Meillet occurred quite early, since
in Old Church Slavonic the diminutive meaning is already predominant:
(18) cęd(o)-ĭce
child-DIM / ’baby’
iměni(je)-ĭce
possession-DIM / ’small possession’
So, to sum up, the hypothesis that diminutive suffixes are diachronically linked to linguistic
items used to express the genealogical relation between father and child (in case of human
do not, and are in this sense undifferentiated” (p. 151) and “[m]asc and fem-gender mark the terms for the male
and female adult of each species, while neut-gender is assigned to the nonsexspecific generic and juvenile terms”
(p. 174).
28
Cf. Scr. sèstrica ‘little sister’, Slov. vªtec ‘small garden’, kôzica ‘little goat’.
© Lexis 2011
beings) and/or between the adult and the young (in case of animals) seems to be confirmed by
the data. The emergence of diminutive suffixes in Romance languages, Greek and Slavonic
languages confirm that the semantic scheme ‘child/young of X’ is a plausible archetype for
the diminutive value.29
Therefore, a diachronic survey of diminutive suffixes of the Indo-European languages of
Europe gives evidence for the hypothesis presented in § 2: the development of a linguistic
state in which stability is clearly prevalent over frequency is the effect of a very general
typological tendency. The main diminutive suffixes attested in European branches of Indo-
European family are the consequence of a unique evolutional path, as illustrated in the
following map:
(19) Lat
Ir Sct Lit
Eng Pol Rus
Grm Cz
Fr
Slov
Port Scr
It Rum
Sp Cat Mac
Srd Alb Blg
M.Gr
‘child/young of…’ > diminutive
5. Diminutives and augmentatives in other linguistic families

The history of Indo-European evaluative morphology reveals a complex and intricate plot
in which a very general typological tendency and different areal constraints are involved. Of
course, in order to confirm the typological nature of the semantic shift ‘child/young of X’ >
diminutive,30 it is necessary to a have a look at the situation of non-Indo-European languages.
In this section I will briefly reproduce some interesting data of Bantu, Thai, Austronesian and
Mon-Khmer languages, originally discussed in Matisoff [1991] (as regards Thai,
Austronesian and Mon-Khmer languages) and Creissels [1999] (with regard to Bantu
languages).
i] Sub-Saharan Africa. Quite recently, a wide renewal of Bantu prefixal morphology has been
taking place. As far as evaluative affixes are concerned, Creissels [1999] points out two
29
Further evidence for this assumption comes from Baltic languages: in Lithuanian, the diminutive suffix -énas
(žmogénas ‘little man’ < žmogùs ‘man’) is very frequent in kinship terminology (brolénas ‘nephew’, but lit. ‘son
of the brother’ < brólis ‘brother’; seserénas ‘nephew’, but lit. ‘son of the sister’ < sesuõ ‘sister’) and in nouns
designating young animals (gérvénas ‘young crane’ < gérvė ‘crane’; genýnas ‘young woodpecker’ < genys
‘woodpecker’). Cf. Butler [1971: 18] and Ambrazas [1993].
30
That is in order to exclude the fact that the similarities we observed in the genesis of Indo-European
diminutives are due to common genetic inheritance.
© Lexis 2011
different tendencies. On the one hand, a new diminutive suffix -ana (i.e. Zulu umfana ‘boy’ >
umfanyana ‘little boy (endearing)’) is being produced through the grammaticalization of
proto-Bantu word *jana ‘child’. The starting point of this grammaticalization path can be
traced in the designation of young animals:
(20) Shona mbudz(i)-ana

goat:9-DIM / ’kid’
imbg(a)-ana
dog:9-DIM / ’puppy’
hwai > hway-ana
sheep:9 sheep:9-DIM / ’lamb’
huku > hukw-ana
fowl:9 fowl:9-DIM / ’chick’31
(Fortune [1955: 120])
On the other hand, the grammaticalization of the proto-Bantu word *kádį ‘woman’ has given
rise to a new augmentative suffix -hadi/-kati:
(21) Sotho monna-hadi

man-AUG / ’big man’
mosadi-hadi
woman-AUG / ’big woman’
Swati umutsi-kati
tree-AUG / ’big tree’
litje-kati
stone-AUG / ’big stone’
(Creissels [1999: 32])32
ii] South-East Asia. Matisoff [1991] identifies two different tendencies in the emergence of
evaluative morphology attested in non-related languages spoken in South-East Asia.
The first tendency concerns the development of diminutive affixes from words meaning
‘child’ (Malay anak ‘child’, Thai lûuk ‘child’, Viet. con ‘child’):
(22) Mal. anak kuntji

DIM key / ’(small) key’
Thai lûuk-mεεw
DIM-cat / ’kitten’
Viet. bàn con
table DIM / ’small table’
dao con
knife DIM / ’small knife’
Once again, the intermediate stage of this semantic shift is represented by names of young
animals:
(23) Thai lûuk-mǔu

child-pig / ’piglet’
lûuk-sïa
31
In Bantu languages noun classes are conventionally indicated by numbers. In these data, the number 9 refers to
the noun class 9 (which usually contains nouns designating animals).
32
The suffix -hadi/-kati was originally used to indicate the female of a species: Sotho pere-hadi ‘mare’ (< pere
‘stallion’), tau-hadi ‘lioness’ (< tau ‘lion’).
© Lexis 2011
child-tiger / ’tiger cub’

Viet. trâu-con
buffalo-child / ’young buffalo’
The second tendency entails the grammaticalization of words meaning ‘mother’ (Mal. ibu
‘mother’, W.Hm. niam/niag ‘mother’, G.Hm. nā ‘mother’, Viet. cái ‘mother’) in order to
form new augmentative affixes:
(24) Mal. ibu kota

AUG city / ’a big city, capital’
ibu sungai
AUG river / ’a big river, main river’
W.Hm.ib tug niag neeg
one CL AUG person / ’an important person’
ib tug niag nom loj
one CL AUG chief big / ’an important chief’
G.Hm. nā-Ngâo
AUG-boat / ’big boat’
nā-túanėN
AUG-person / ’big person (either man or woman)’
Viet. đòn cài
carrying pole AUG / ’big carrying-pole’
hòn cài
island AUG / ’main, big island’
Data presented so far can be represented as follows:
(25) SEMANTIC ARCHETYPE OF SEMANTIC ARCHETYPE OF

DIMINUTIVES AUGMENTATIVES
Italo- and Ibero-Romance zones young / child agentive / pejorative
collective
relational
Greek area young / child agentive / pejorative
collective
Slavonic area young / child locative
Sub-Saharan Africa young / child woman / female
South-East Asia young / child mother
So, a quick survey of evaluative morphology of some non-Indo-European languages seems to

support my previous conclusions. The emergence of diminutives is often the effect of a very
general typological matrix, ‘young / child > ‘small/little’, independently of genetic and areal
constraints.33 On the contrary, in the development of augmentatives, a frequent but unstable
phenomenon, many different areal tendencies do occur. In other words, since a wide
typological tendency is missing, when the category ‘augmentative’ starts developing each
language autonomously uses the simplest manner to express it on formal grounds. In this case,
33
The semantic shift ‘young / child > diminutive’ is attested also in Ewe and in Cantonese raised-tone
diminutives (Jurafsky [1996: 539]). Among Indo-European languages, it has probably played a role in the
emergence of Germanic and Baltic diminutive suffixes too. The most evident difference between the Indo-
European languages and the non-Indo-European languages presented above is that in the latter the starting point
of the entire process is a free form, that is a word. In the former, the process involves a bound form, that is a
suffix, in all of its stages. Undoubtedly, this difference is relevant, but in this paper I am focusing on the
semantics of evaluative affixes and in this sense the analogies overcome the differences.
© Lexis 2011
the simplest way is to ‘reproduce’ the formal strategy adopted by neighbouring languages,
even if genetically unrelated.
So, the history of Indo-European evaluative morphology must not be approached in a
unitary way. In fact, an investigation of the history of some Indo-European augmentative
suffixes reveals that it is especially difficult to single out recurrent and common stages in their
evolutional processes: each language or group of languages seems to proceed along a specific
path in order to express the meaning ‘big X’ by morphological means. Nonetheless in the
genesis of Indo-European augmentative suffixes many traces of convergence among different
languages can be found: in the absence of typological tendencies, languages spoken in the
same region seem to influence one another and seem to develop this morphological strategy in
the same way. On the contrary, in the case of diminutives, a common archetype can be found,
even when a wide cross-linguistic perspective is taken into account.34
7. Conclusions: why dynamic typology?

In conclusion, it is necessary to refer once again to the list presented in (2). As we stated
before, the current typological shaping of European languages with regard to evaluative
morphology is the result of a quite recent process. In this regard we have pointed out that
most languages of the penultimate generation lacked augmentative suffixes.
If this is the premise, one can wonder whether dynamic typology is really the best
framework in order to explain the history of evaluative morphology. In fact, since both
ancient and modern European languages display some diminutive suffixes, the history of their
evaluative morphology could be easily explained by stating that a new category,
augmentatives, was added to the already present category of diminutives.
However, if we examine the issue in detail, this point of view has a number of
shortcomings. In fact, as we saw in § 1, in the history of evaluative morphology of Indo-
European languages of Europe, besides the already mentioned process of innovation,
corresponding to the emergence of augmentatives, there seems to have been also a process of
renewal, involving diminutives. This process took place in Romance languages, in Slavonic
languages and in Greek: suffixes that displayed a diminutive value in the earliest stages of
these languages usually do not correspond to present-day diminutive suffixes. Other linguistic
groups, Germanic and Celtic above all, seem not to have been affected by this renewal. In
German, for example, the most widespread diminutive suffixes, -chen35 and -lein, did not
change in the course of ages: they are the product of a complex syncretism between Old High
German diminutive suffixes -īn and -ein and well-known Proto-Indo-European diminutive
morphemes *-k(o)- and *-l(o)- (cf. Butler [1971: 50]). As to Celtic languages, the suffix –an,
widely used in Old Irish (ferán ‘little man’ < fer ‘man’), is still preserved in forms such as
34
We must be very cautious not to over-extend this conclusion: ‘wide’ and ‘general’ are not synonymous of
‘universal’. The semantic shift ‘young / child > diminutive’ is attested in many typologically different linguistic
families, but exceptions are not excluded from this generalization. For example, in most Afroasiatic languages
diminutives follow an evolutive path in which animate nouns do not play any role. In Berber the most common
morphological strategy in diminutive formation is the circumfix t__t (i.e. Kabyle tadart ‘small foot’ < adar
‘foot’), the primary meaning of which (also in a diachronic perspective, cfr. Taine-Cheikh [2002]) is feminine
(i.e. Moroccan Berber tafroukht ‘girl’ < afroukh ‘boy’). The same circumfix is widely attested in singulative
forms (i.e. Ayt Ayache Berber talxuxt ‘peaches’ (collective) < lxux ‘a peach’). The use of the diminutive
circumfix t___t in combination with animate nouns is generally impossible, since the default interpretation is
feminine.
35
Cf. Wright [19622: 150]: “-chen (Middle Low German -kīn = K + īn where each element is a dim. suffix,
MHG (Middle German dialect) -chin, -chen).”
© Lexis 2011
Scottish Gaelic balachan ‘wee laddie’ (< balach ‘boy’; cf. Thurneysen [1946] and Ball and
Fife [1993]).
Therefore, if diminutives are a stable and frequent phenomenon, why did the renewal not
involve all their occurrences? The answer to this question may be found by examining the
emergence of augmentative suffixes and this justifies the choice of the framework of dynamic
typology. My opinion is that the fact that diminutives have been renewed only in languages
that have developed augmentative suffixes did not occur by chance. In other words, it has
been the emergence of augmentatives that has triggered the renewal of diminutives. So, one
can easily expect that the languages that did not undergo this innovation, have preserved their
diminutives. This is the case of Germanic and Celtic languages. Thus, we are not dealing with
a simple addition of augmentatives to already present diminutives; the renewal triggered by
the innovation suggests that a more complex typological shift took place. In the transition
from type A to type B, diminutives also underwent relevant changes. What is really
intriguing, is that the renewal also involved diminutive prefixes:
[p]our ce qui concerne les preéfixes évaluatifs de l’italien, ce qui frappe le plus est que cette
classe, à la différence des autres, n’a pas toujours été constituée des mêmes éléments, mais au
contraire ses membres ont changé beaucoup au cours du siècle. […] En fait, le système de la
préfixation de l’italien ancien était fort different de l’actuel, et la plupart des évaluatifs qui
existaient dans les premiers siécles ne sont plus productifs aujourd’hui ou ont complètement perdu
cette fonction. […]. [L]a classe des préfixes évaluatifs est celle qui a été la plus mobile pendant
toute l’histoire de l’italien, et […] elle n’a jamais cessé de s’enrichir de nouveaux éléments en
même temps qu’elle en abandonnait d’autres (Montermini [2002: 218-219]).36
As a result we may safely state that evaluative affixes seem to represent an autonomous
micro-system within derivational morphology. In fact, processes that have led to the
emergence of present-day augmentative and diminutive suffixes reveal a complex network of
mutual relations in which the success or the failure of each linguistic item depend on the
outcome of items linked to it. Within this network, the re-building of evaluative morphology,
which took place within the slow and complex course which led from ancient to modern Indo-
European languages and which brought about the development of a stable and frequent type,
is the result of an interaction between a general typological matrix and some areal-specific
tendencies.
Bibliography
AMBRAZAS Saulius, “On the development of diminutives in the Baltic languages”,
Linguistica Baltica, Vol. 2, 1993: 47-67.
BALL Martin J. & FIFE James (eds.), The Celtic Languages, London – New York, Routledge,
1993.
BUCK Carl D. & PETERSEN Walter, A Reverse Index of Greek Nouns and Adjectives,
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1944.
BUTLER Jonathan L., Latin -īnus, -īna, -ĭnus and -ĭneus, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London,
University of California Press, 1971.
CHANTRAINE Pierre, La formation des noms en grec ancien, Paris, Champion, 1933.
CREISSELS Denis, “Origine et évolution des diminutifs et augmentatifs dans quelques langues
africaines”, Silexicales Vol. 2, 1999: 29-35.
CUZZOLIN Pierluigi, “Sull’origine del singolativo in celtico, con particolare riferimento al
36
In Italian (and in many other Indo-European languages) the most widespread evaluative prefixes are mini- and
micro- (diminutives) and maxi-, mega(lo)- and macro- (augmentatives). Cf. also Montermini [2009].
© Lexis 2011
medio gallese”, Archivio Glottologico Italiano, 1998: 121-149.

DRESSLER Wolfgang U. & MERLINI BARBARESI Lavinia, Morphopragmatics. Diminutives
and intensifiers in Italian, German and other languages, Berlin-New York, Mouton De
Gruyter, 1994.
GAIDE Françoise, Le substantifs masculins latins en …(I)Ō, …(I)ŌNIS, Louvain-Paris,
Éditions Peeters, 1988.
GLARE Peter G. W. (ed), Oxford Latin Dictionary, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982.
FORTUNE George, An Analytical Grammar of Shona, London-Cape Town-New York,
Longmans, Green and Co, 1955.
GRANDI Nicola, “Su alcune presunte anomalie della morfologia valutativa: il rapporto con il
genere ed il numero”, Archivio Glottologico Italiano, Vol. 1, 2001: 25-56.
GRANDI Nicola, Morfologie in contatto. Le costruzioni valutative nelle lingue del
Mediterraneo, Milano, Franco Angeli, 2002a.
GRANDI Nicola, “Development and Spread of Augmentative Suffixes in the Mediterranean
Area”, in RAMAT Paolo and STOLZ Thomas (eds.), Mediterranean Languages, Bochum,
Brockmeyer, 2002b: 171-190.
GRANDI Nicola, “Matrici tipologiche vs. tendenze areali nel mutamento morfologico. La
genesi della morfologia valutativa in prospettiva interlinguistica”, Lingue e linguaggio,
2003: 105-145.
GREENBERG Joseph H., “Some Methods of Dynamic Comparison in Linguistics”, in PUHVEL
Jaan (ed.), Substance and Structure of Language, Berkeley-Los Angeles, University of
California Press, 1969: 147-203.
GREENBERG Joseph H., “Diachrony, Synchrony, and Language Universals”, in GREENBERG
Joseph H., FERGUSON Charles A. & MORAVCSIK Edith A. (eds.), Universals of Human
Language, vol. 1: Method and Theory, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1978: 63-
91.
GREENBERG Joseph H., “The Diachronic Typological Approach”, in SHIBATANI Masayoshi &
BYNON Theodora (eds.), Approaches to Language Typology, Oxford, Clarendon Press,
1995: 145-166.
HAAS Mary R., “The expression of the diminutive”, in SMITH M. Estellie (ed.), Studies in
Linguistics in honor of George L. Trager, The Hague, Mouton, 1972: 148-152.
HAKAMIES Keino, Étude sur l’origine et l’évolution du diminutif latin et sa survie dans les
langues romanes, Helsinki, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran Kirjapainon Oy, 1951.
HEILMANN Luigi, Grammatica storica della lingua greca, Torino, S.E.I., 1963 (off-print of
Enciclopedia classica, vol. 5: La lingua greca nei mezzi della sua espressione).
JANNARIS Antonius N., An Historical Greek Grammar, London, MacMillan and Co., 1897.
JURAFSKY Dan, “Universal tendencies in the semantics of the diminutive”, Language, Vol.
72.3, 1996: 533-578.
KAHANE Henry & KAHANE-TOOLE Renée, “The Augmentative Feminine in the Romance
Languages”, Romance Philology, Vol. 2, 1948-1949: 135-175.
LAZZERONI Romano, “Per la storia dei derivati in -ōn- nelle lingue classiche”, Studi e Saggi
Linguistici, Vol. 3, 1963: 1-48.
LIDDELL Henry G. & SCOTT Robert, A Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 1968.
MATISOFF James A., “The Mother of All Morphemes: augmentatives and diminutives in areal
and universal perspectives”, in RATLIFF Martha & SCHILLER Eric (eds.), Papers from
the first annual meeting of the Southeast Asian Languistics Society, Tempe (AZ.),
Arizona State Universit, 1991: 293-349.
MEILLET Antoine, Le slave commun, Paris, Champion, 1965.
© Lexis 2011
MONTERMINI Fabio, Le système préfixal en Italien contemporain, Ph. D. Diss., University of

Paris X and Bologna 2002.
MONTERMINI Fabio, Il lato sinistro della morfologia. La prefissazione in italiano e nelle
altre lingue del mondo, Milano, Franco Angeli, 2009.
NANDRIŞ Grigore, Old Church Slavonic Grammar, London, The Athlone Press, 1965.
TAINE-CHEIKH Catherine, “Morphologie et morphogenèse des diminutifs en zénaga (berbère
de Mauritanie)”, in NAÏT-ZERRAD Kamal (ed.), Articles de linguistique berbère.
Mémorial Werner Vycichl, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2002.
ROHLFS Gerhard, Grammatica storica della lingua italiana e dei suoi dialetti, 3 vols., vol. 3:
Sintassi e formazione delle parole, Torino, Einaudi, 1969.
THURNEYSEN Rudolf, A Grammar of Old Irish, Dublin, Dublin Institute for Advanced
Studies, 1946.
VAILLANT André, Grammaire comparée des langues slaves, Tome IV: La formation des
noms, Paris, Éditions Klincksieck, 1974.
VOLPATI Carlo, “Coppie di nomi di due generi”, Lingua Nostra, Vol. 16, 1955: 2-5.
WRIGHT Jospeh, Historical German Grammar, Vol. 1: Phonology, Word-formation and
Accidence, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 19622.
ZUBIN David A. & KÖPCKE Klaus-Michael, “Gender and Folk Taxonomy: the Indexical
Relation between Grammatical and Lexical Categorization”, in CRAIG Colette (ed.),
Noun classes and categorization, Amsterdam, Benjamins, 1986: 139-180.
Abbreviations
A(djective), Alb(anian), anim(ate), AUG(mentative), Blg (Bulgarian), Cat(alan), CL(assifier),
Cz(ech), Pol(ish), DIM(inutive), Eng(lish), F(eminine), Fr(ench), G(reen) Hm(ong), Grm
(German), hum(an), INTF (interfix), Ir(ish), It(alian), Lat(vian), Lit(huanian), LOC(ative),
M(asculine), M(odern) Gr(eek), Mac(edonian), Mal(ay), N(oun), NTR (neuter) PEJ(orative),
Port(uguese), Rum(anian), Rus(sian), Scr (Serbo-Croat), Sct (Scottish Gaelic), Slov(ene),
Sp(anish), Srd (Sardinian), V(erb), Viet(namese), W(hite) Hm(ong).
© Lexis 2011
A Cross-Linguistic Research into Phonetic Iconicity

Lívia Körtvélyessy1
Abstract
Phonetic iconicity in evaluative morphology is an integral part of sound symbolism in natural

languages. Former research in this field has brought contradictory results. On the one hand,
there is Universal #1926 (Plank and Filimonova’s Universals Archive, Konstanz) claiming
universal marking of diminutives by front high vowels, and of augmentatives by high back
vowels. Furthermore, there are papers extending the idea of phonetic iconicity to the front-
back opposition of consonants. On the other hand, there are studies (Ultan [1978],
Nieuwenhuis [1985], Gregová, Körtvélyesssy and Zimmermann [2009]) indicating that (a)
this phenomenon is of areal rather than universal nature; (b) there are substantial differences
between languages within individual genetic families, (c) front high vowels are typical of
augmentatives rather than diminutives; diminutive affixes are acoustically realized by central
vowels
The paper presents the results of cross-linguistic research into a balanced sample of 60
languages of the world. The focus is this time on the verification of the hypothesis in question
by comparing languages of various genetic, geographical and morphological types. Special
attention is paid to (a) checking the postulated front-back opposition in languages with both
morphological diminutives and augmentatives, (b) the relevance of phonetic iconicity in terms
of geographical, genetic, and morphological classifications of the sample languages;
comparison of the data obtained with the results arrived at in the previous stages of our
research which dealt with 35 European languages. The discussion is supported by numerous
examples.
Keywords: diminutives – augmentatives – phonetic iconicity – cross-linguistic research
1
P.J. Šafárik University, Košice, Slovakia: livia.kortvelyessy@upjs.sk
© Lexis 2011
1. Introduction
This paper was motivated by the Universals and Typology in Word-Formation conference
(Košice, August 2009). Encouraged by a positive response to our presentation2 on phonetic
iconicity I decided to take up a follow-up research, and to compare languages of Europe and
Africa in terms of phonetic iconicity in evaluative morphology. I could rely on a
comprehensive database characterizing languages of the world according to various
evaluative morphology parameters. A general background for my research and the state-of-
the-art in the field are outlined in Section 2, followed by the specification of the method of
research and a sample of languages analyzed (Section 3); the issue of areal typology is briefly
introduced in Section 4; an analysis of the data is provided in Section 5. The Conclusions
section summarizes the results.
2. Background
2.1. General
And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted – nevermore!
In 1845 Alan Edgar Poe loyal to his Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words
wrote the world-famous poem Raven. Subsequently, he published in Graham’s Magazine an
essay The philosophy of composition where he inter alia accounted for choice of the refrain
Nevermore.
The question now arose as to the character of the word. Having made up my mind to a refrain, the
division of the poem into stanzas was, of course, a corollary: the refrain forming the close to each
stanza. That such a close, to have force, must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted emphasis,
admitted no doubt: and these considerations inevitably led me to the long o as the most sonorous
vowel, in connection with r as the most producible consonant.
The sound of the refrain being thus determined, it became necessary to select a word embodying
this sound, and at the same time in the fullest possible keeping with that melancholy which I had
predetermined as the tone of the poem. In such a search it would have been absolutely impossible
to overlook the word ‘Nevermore.’ In fact, it was the very first which presented itself.
Poe chose the word nevermore because of the strong ‘o’ sound, feeling that this particular
vowel best expressed a feeling of sadness. Contemporary linguistics would probably cast
doubts upon the idea that [r] is the most ‘producible’ consonant. However, Poe himself
indirectly claimed the importance of sound symbolism in both language production and
perception.
Sound symbolism or phonetic iconicity in various languages, ranging from Indo-European

to Amero-Indian languages, was studied by many linguists, for example, Sapir [1929],
Jespersen [1933], Ultan [1978], Nieunwehuis [1985], Diffltoth [1994] and Bauer [1996].
2
Gregová, Körtvélyessy, Zimmermann [2010].
© Lexis 2011
Their efforts resulted in partial support to and partial denial of Universal #1926 (originally
#1932) as formulated in Plank and Filimonova’s Universals Archive:
There is an apparently universal iconic tendency in diminutives and augmentatives: diminutives
tend to contain high front vowels, whereas augmentatives tend to contain high back vowels.
Anderson in his A Grammar of Iconism [1998: 106] points out that
[s]ound symbolism usually is organized in terms of phonemic polarities or binary oppositions:
front versus back, high versus low, rounded versus unrounded, acute versus grave, compact versus
diffuse. These correlate with the discontinuities of human experience in terms of semantic
contrasts or polarities, such as small versus large, proximate versus distant, weak versus strong,
light versus dark, and so forth, in accordance with principle of phonemic relativism: the iconic
potential of any given phoneme depends not on its inherent acoustic or kinesthetic features per se,
but rather, on the extent to which these features lend themselves to contrasts within the phoneme
system of the language…
This indicates link between phonetic iconicity and evaluative morphology understood by
Štekauer [2010] as deviation from a standard, default value. This field, as many others in
linguistics, can be viewed as a continuum with prototypical cases expressing the meaning of
quantity under or above the default value (which may change from language to language,
from speech community to speech community and, obviously, from situation to situation.
This definition is more liberal than that proposed by Grandi [2002] who delimits the scope of
evaluativeness along two axes: SMALL ↔ BIG and GOOD ↔ BAD. Štekauer’s definition
also encompasses, inter alia, attenuatives or deintensifiers, such as reddish (because reddish
deviates from the default value of ‘redness’).
2.2. State of the art
Sound symbolism has been successfully exploited in poetry and fiction (level of parole).
Its langue counterpart, the connection of sound symbolism and evaluative morphology at the
level of language system also inspired a number of linguists to take up cross-linguistic
research. In fact, there are several major cross-linguistic studies, in particular, those by Ultan
[1978], Nieuwenhuis [1985] and Bauer [1996]. In spite of their unbalanced samples of
languages they contributed to the examination of validity of the above-mentioned Universal.
Two important conclusions have been drawn. First, it was pointed out that phonetic iconicity
in evaluative morphology is not only bound to specific vowels. It was found out that fronted
consonants are iconic symbols of diminutiveness, too. Second, it is assumed that, cross-
linguistically, phonetic symbolism in evaluative morphology is primarily governed by the
areal factor (Ultan [1978: 545]). This translates to the assumption that rather than of universal
nature, phonetic symbolism in evaluative morphology is a phenomenon that occurs in certain
geographically defined areas of the world. This is also confirmed by Bauer [1996: 201] who,
on the basis of a sample of 50 languages, concludes that
[t]here does not appear to be any universal principle of sound symbolism operating in markers of
the diminutive and augmentative such that palatal articulation correlates with diminutives and not
with augmentatives.
Similar results are reported in Štekauer, Valera & Körtvélyessy [2010] for a different sample
of 55 languages.
Furthermore, Diffloth [1994] points out that iconic values of vowels in Bahnar expressives
are High = Big, Low = Small, i.e., exactly the opposite to the postulated cross-linguistic
situation.
Interesting results were arrived at within a research project at Šafárik University in Košice
(Štekauer et al. [2009]). An analysis of four genera – the Slavic, the Germanic, the Romance
and the Finno-Ugric – shows that in both diminutive and augmentative categories it is the
© Lexis 2011
front element that unambiguously prevails and, as a result, it is impossible to draw a line
between the front marking of diminutives and the back marking of augmentatives.
Furthermore, it was shown that the evaluative categories are most frequently expressed by
complex markers combining iconic and non-iconic segments, which makes the process of
iconicity evaluation most difficult. Neither the results obtained from a comparison of three
groups of geographically and genetically different languages, including the Indo-European,
the Austronesian and the Niger-Congo families (Gregová, Körtvélyessy, Zimmermann
[2010]) confirm the postulate of universal iconic preference for front high vowels and front
consonants in diminutives and back vowels and back consonants for augmentatives as
claimed by Universal 1926 in Plank and Filimonova’s Universals Archive. On the contrary, a
detailed analysis of diminutive and augmentative affixes, supported by the frequency
distribution histograms, indicates that front high vowels are typical of augmentatives rather
than diminutives. Diminutive affixes are acoustically realized by central vowels. Similarly,
the behaviour of consonants contradicts any universal expectations: front consonants slightly
prevail in augmentatives and back consonants are typical of diminutives. In some languages,
for example, Slovak,3 the process of palatalization changes the consonant before the
diminutive affix, e.g. palic-a ‘stick’ > palič-k-a ‘a little stick’. In any case, the above-
mentioned observations disregard any phonetic modifications due to affixation.
3. Method and sample

The current research data has been obtained by means of two different questionnaires.
Questionnaire 1: The questionnaire consists of a list of 35 core vocabulary items. The aim was
to cover both the core vocabulary and four major word-classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and
adverbs. The structure of the core vocabulary in terms of cognitive categories is as follows:
(1) - [Animate] - [Human] - [Kinship term]

- [Body part]
- [Profession]
- [Animal]
- [Plant]
- [Inanimate] - [Natural Object]
- [Celestial Object]
- [Artefact]
- [Action] - [Action Proper]
- [State]
- [Quality]
- [Circumstance]
The data sheet with 35 lexical items was filled out by linguists. In case of several options of
diminutive-formation for the individual lexical items only the most productive pattern was
taken into account. Although the completed questionnaires gave us useful information,
supplementary comments added by our informants proved to be a source of important details
and instigated the development of another questionnaire – this time in the form of a data
sheet.
3
For more detailed analysis of the Slovak diminutives cf. Böhmerová (this volume).
© Lexis 2011
Questionnaire 2: The data sheet is divided into 4 sections:

A. Diminutives
B. Augmentatives
C. Semantic categories of Evaluative morphology
D. Word-classes
The basic question of the diminutive/augmentative section is: Does the language form
DIMINUTIVE / AUGMENTATIVE morphologically? Various possibilities of morphological
formation (prefixation, suffixation, infixation, transfixation, compounding, incorporation,
reduplication, conversion) of diminutives and/or augmentatives are offered and the informants
are asked for examples, including literal translation into English.
The second section focuses on semantic categories in evaluative morphology. The
underlying question is: Can your language express the following semantic categories? The
accompanying chart offers semantic categories of physical quantity, quantity of quality,
quantity of action, gender, etc. The central question of the last section focuses on word-classes
that can express diminutiveness/augmentativeness in a given language. Questionnaires were
completed in two ways – either informants were approached or descriptive grammars of
individual languages were used.
4. Areal typology
Areal typology is characterized by a relative paucity of literature, especially in comparison
with other fields of typological research. By implication, the study of phonetic iconicity and
evaluative morphology in terms of areal classification means, many times, work on untilled
area. Given the main focus of this paper – the African languages, an important reference is
Güldemann’s (forthcoming) outline of a synchronic macro-areal profile of Africa. Güldemann
suggests 5 language areas in Africa.
The collected questionnaires represent 16 languages. Table 1 and Figure 1 illustrate their
genealogical classification and geographical areas.4
Language Language family Genus Area

Bafut Niger-Congo Bantoid Cameroon
Bemba Niger-Congo Bantoid Democratic
republic of Congo,
Southern Kivu
Province
Luwanga Niger-Congo Bantoid Kenya, Lake
Victoria
Kiluba Niger-Congo Bantoid Democratic
republic of Congo,
Katanga Province
Xhosa Niger-Congo Bantoid South Africa
Zulu Niger-Congo Bantoid South Africa
Akan Niger-Congo Kwa Ghana
Yoruba Niger-Congo Defoid Benin, Nigeria
4
The genealogical classification is based on WALS. If the language was not present there, the Ethnologue was used (e.g. in
the case of language Mina).
© Lexis 2011
Fur Nilo-Saharan Fur Sudan

Kanuri Nilo-Saharan Saharan Cha, Niger,
Nigeria, Sudan
Koyra Chiini Nilo-Saharan Songhay Mali
Ma´di Nilo-Saharan, Moru-Ma´di Sudan, Uganda
Central Sudanic
Siwi Afro-Asiatic Berber Egypt
Maale Afro-Asiatic North-Omotic Ethiopia
Mina Afro-Asiatic Biu-Mandara Nothern camroon
Nama Hottentot Khoisan Central Khoisan Namibia
Table 1: The genealogical classification and areas of presence of 16 African languages
Figure 1: The genealogical classification and areas of presence of 16 African languages
Güldemann proposes 5 macro-areas of Africa:

(I) Sahara spread zone (Berber, Arabic)
(II) Chad-Ethiopia
(III) Macro-Sudan belt
(IV) Bantu spread zone
(V) Kalahari Basin
Each macro-area has its language representation in Table 1. Two languages were excluded
from further analysis – Ma’di and Luwanga. They are spoken on a territory that belongs to a
large area of southern Sudan, Uganda, Kenia, northern Tanzania. Güldemann characterizes it
as an expansion area of Nilotic ‘framed’ by 4 fragmentation zones, typical of serious lack of
data. For similar reasons the Kanuri language was dropped, too.
Table 2 and Figure 2 illustrate the fusion of Güldemann’s linguistic areas and WALS
information on sample languages.
© Lexis 2011
Language area Language Family Genus

Siwa Afro-Asiatic Berber
Sahara spread Zone Koyra Chiini Nilo-Saharan Songhay
Fur Nilo-Saharan Fur
Chad-Ethiopia Maale Afro-Asiatic North-Omotic
Akan Niger-Congo Kwa
Macro-Sudan belt Yoruba Niger-Congo Defoid
Bafut Niger-Congo Bantoid
Bemba Niger-Congo Bantoid
Bantu spread zone Kiluba Niger-Congo Bantoid
Khoekhoe Khoisan Central Khoisan
Kalahari Basin Zulu Niger-Congo Bantoid
Xhosa Niger-Congo Bantoid
Table 2: Fusion of Güldemann linguistic areas and WALS
Figure 2: Fusion of Güldemann linguistic areas and WALS
5. Analysis of the linguistic areas

The analysis was based on three basic questions:
1. Is there Evaluative Morphology in the African language analyzed?
2. If yes, do the morphological markers comply with the iconicity hypothesis?
3. What are the differences between African and European languages in terms of
phonetic iconicity?
5.1. Is there Evaluative Morphology in the African languages analyzed?
The following table overviews the presence of evaluative morphology in the languages
under investigation.
© Lexis 2011
Iconic – Non-iconic
Universal Ultan+Nieuwenhuis
Is there
Area Languages EM? DIM AUG DIM
Siwa
Sahara spread Koyra
Zone Chiini
Fur
Chad - Ethiopia Maale
Akan
Macro-Sudan
belt Yoruba
Bafut
Bemba
Bantu spread
Zone Kiluba
Kohoekbe
Kalahari Basin Xhosa
Zulu
Table 3: Presence of EM - no EM - yes - no
Evaluative Morphology is present in 9 of 12 African languages. The Kalahari Basin and

Bantu Spread Zone completely match Güldemann’s areal classification. One of three
languages of the Macro-Sudan Belt – the Yoruba language (an isolating language) – lacks
evaluative morphology. The Sahara spread Zone is represented by 2 geographically distant
languages in my sample, and unfortunately without sufficient information on the Siwa
language – no informant was available and the grammars do not offer this kind of
information. On the other hand, the previously excluded languages – Kanuri, Maadi,
Luwanga. Maadi are spoken on this territory; Luwanga makes use of evaluative morphology,
Kanuri does not.
Figure 3: Linguistic areas of Africa and EM
© Lexis 2011
5.2. Do the morphological markers comply with the iconicity hypothesis?
In addition to the question of presence/absence of evaluative morphology in the languages

under research, the nature of evaluative markers was studied. The attention was paid to their
vocalic and consonantal iconicity.
The occurrence of purely front high vowels in the diminutive affixes in the languages of
Africa is 0%. Single-segment palatal (or alveo-palatal) consonants do not occur either. The
occurrence of the combination front high vowel + alveopalatal/palatal consonant5 is also 0%.
An overview of the structure of evaluative markers in the sample languages is given Table 4
and Table 5.
Analysis of diminutive and augmentative affixes

DIMINUTIVES
I. Sahara spread zone
Siwa x
Koyra Chiini
-iya front high + palatal + central low
-ije front high + palatal + front mid
II. Chad – Ethiopia
Fur x
Maale
-ómma back mid + bilabial + central low
III. Macro-Sudan belt
Akan
ba- bilabial + central low
Yoruba x
Bafut
mu- bilabial + back high
fi- labio-dental + front high
-tə alveolar + central
IV. Bantu spread Zone
Bemba
kaa - velar + central low
aka- central low + velar + central low
atu - central low + alveolar + back high
Kiluba
ká- velar + central low
V. Kalahari Basin
Khoekbe
-ró alveolar + back mid
Xhosa
-ncinci dental alveolar + front high + dental alveolar + front high
-ana central low + alveolar + central low
5
All vowels of I-type were characterized as front high, E-type vowels were indicated as front mid, vowels of A-
type are central low, vowels O-type are back mid, and all vowels of U-type were interpreted as back high.
Consonants were divided into three categories based on the place of articulation: FRONT: bilabial, labio-dental,
dental; MID: alveolar, palato-alveolar, palatal; BACK: velar, laryngeal.5
© Lexis 2011
Zulu
-anyana central low + palatal + alveolar + central low
-ana central low + alveolar + central low
-wana labial velar + central low + alveolar + central low
-ane central low + alveolar + front mid
Table 4: Analysis of diminutive affixes
If a tendency to phonetic iconicity means only the ‘appearance of a high front vowel
and/or palatal/alveolar consonant’, Koyra Chiini, Bafut, Bemba, Khoekbe, Xhosa, Zulu show
this tendency. However, if only vowel sounds are taken into consideration (as proposed by the
Universal), no more than three languages – Bafut, Xhosa and Koyra Chiini – can be included.
Bafut has two diminutive prefixes and one suffix:
(2) sing ‘bird’ < mu-sing ‘birdie’

ngo’o ‘stone’< fi-ngo’o ‘DIM+stone’
tonge ‘dig’< tong-tə ‘dig + DIM’
Each of them consists of at least one iconic element – [m], [t], [i]. However, only [i] sound of
the fi- prefix corresponds with the Universal.
The case of Xhosa is even more confusing. Both diminutive suffixes contain iconic
elements. On the other hand, the fully iconic –ncinci only appears in one word of the
questionnaire:
(3) ubawo’father’ < ubawoncinci ‘daddy
The vowel sounds of the second suffix -ana are non-iconic, only [n] is referred to as alveolar,
thus iconic.
(4) isando ‘hammer’ < isandwana ‘hammer + DIM’
Neither Koyra Chiini can be unambiguously characterized as an iconic language. Heath

[1999: 78] states that
The old Diminutive suffix –iya is preserved only vestigially in a few forms like bundiye
‘brochette’ < bundu stick, wood’ and huriya ‘knife’...plus a few flora-fauna terms like takiriya
‘firefinch’.
On the other hand, he also mentions compounding to be a diminutive-forming process.

Determinatum of the compound is -ije, whereas X-ije literally means ‘child of X’ in the sense
‘a smaller entity associated with X’. If X denotes a physical object, X-ije denotes a smaller
object physically associated with it or a small X. If X denotes a collectivity, mass, location, or
abstraction, X-ije denotes an individual (Heath [1999: 78]). Considering the meaning of the
compound, the meaning and the position of -ije never changes and preferably it can be
referred to as a semiaffix and the process of coining diminutives in Koyra Chiini suffixation:
(5) fufu-tondi-ije ‘small grindstone’ < fufu-tondi ‘grinding stones’

ferey-ije ‘piece of brick’ < ferrey ‘brick’
koyra-ije ‘citizen, townsperson’ < koyra ‘town’
waηgu-ije ‘soldier’ < waηgu ‘army, war’
© Lexis 2011
Nevertheless, if -ije is accounted for as a (semi)affix, it is the only iconic suffix in the sample
of African languages.
AUGMENTATIVES
I. Sahara spread zone
Siwa x
Koyra Chiini x
II. Chad – Ethiopia
Fur x
Maale
-ats central low + post alveolar
III. Macro-Sudan belt
Akan x
Yoruba x
Bafut
ma- bilabial + central low
IV. Bantu spread Zone
Bemba
cii- post-alveolar + front high
ici- front high + post-alveolar + front high
ifi- front high + labio-dental
Kiluba
kí- post-alveolar + front high
V. Kalahari Basin
Khoekbe
-kára velar + central low + alveolar +central low
Xhosa
-kazi velar + central low + dental-alveolar + front high
Zulu
-kazi velar + central low + alveolar + front high
Table 5: Analysis of augmentative affixes
Augmentative markers are used in nine out of twelve languages. Neither of them incorporates
a back vowel; to the contrary, front high vowels are present – e.g. in Bemba:
(6) maayo ‘mother’ < ciimaayo ‘AUG + mother

utulo’sleep’ < icitulo ‘AUG+sleep’
and Kiluba:
(7) kíkiluwe ‘hand’< kíkiluwe ‘AUG+hand’
© Lexis 2011
5.3. What are the differences between African and European languages in terms of
phonetic iconicity?
The research data for the languages of Europe show two major trends.6 First,
morphological realization of the category of diminutiveness is much more common than that
of augmentativeness. The same conclusion applies to the languages of Africa, which confirms
a universal implicational relation ‘IF Augmentative markers THEN diminutive markers’ (cf.,
for example, Štekauer, Valera and Körtvélyessy [to appear). Second, there are considerable
]differences between individual language families. While Slavic languages show ‘affluence’
of evaluative morphology without substantial differences between individual languages,
ranging over all main word-classes, there are considerable differences inside the other
language families examined, for example, between German and English, between Estonian
and Hungarian, etc. African languages seem to be more homogeneous in terms of the number
of evaluative markers per language, this number ranging from one to four.
The postulate of phonetic iconicity has not been confirmed for either European languages
or African languages. On both continents the major part of evaluative markers is based on a
combination of iconic and non-iconic elements.
The tendency towards iconicity in African augmentatives has not been confirmed either –
the results show totally opposite tendencies – similar to those mentioned by Diffloth [1994]
for Bahnar languages where, as he states, high=Big and low=small. Similarly, the analysis of
augmentative affixes in Slavic languages has revealed the predominance of two combinations
front high vowel + MID consonant and front high vowel + MID consonant + BACK
consonant. Morphological augmentatives in Germanic and Finno-Ugric languages are rare
and do not permit us to draw any relevant conclusions in relation to phonetic iconicity. In
Romance languages, most of the consonants are MID ones and most of vowels are central.
6. Conclusions
The basic aim of the study presented was to analyze the tendencies towards sound
symbolism in the linguistic areas of Africa and to compare the results with previous
conclusions. Following the Universal, the iconicity of vowels was tested and following the
previous research by Ultan [1978] and Nieuwenhuis [1985], the iconicity of consonants was
examined, too. Both analyses confirmed the results of research carried out on a sample of
Indo-European and Austronesian languages – Universal #1932 seems to be just one of
linguistic disbeliefs. The verb seem is used by purpose in the previous sentence. The longer
(and the deeper) I have been studying the phonetic iconicity in various languages the more
persuaded I am that the synchronic study should be completed with diachronic analysis and
harmonized with the principles of Natural Morphology (e.g. the vowel harmony rule
overpowers the iconicity principle).
The second goal of the analysis – to point out the importance of areal classification of
languages within the framework of Evaluative Morphology – was proved. In this case, no
seem is necessary – the presence/absence of evaluative morphology in the sample languages
of Africa closely match the linguistic areas as proposed by Güldemann.
6
Stekauer et al. [2009], the research encompassed 25 languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Czech,
Slovak, Polish, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Macedonian; English, German, Swedish, Danish,
Afrikaans; French, Italian, Romanian, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan; Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian.
© Lexis 2011
At the very end, I would like to remind the readers that the presented text is based on a
fraction of about 2,000 languages spoken in Africa. By implication, the results should be
viewed with caution.
Bibliography
ANDERSON Earl R., A Grammar of Iconism, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1998.
BAUER Laurie, “No Phonetic Iconicity in Evaluative Morphology?”, Studia Linguistica, Vol.
50, 1996: 189-206.
BÖHMEROVA Ada, Suffixal Diminutives and Augmentatives in Slovak − A Systemic View with
Some Cross-Linguistic Considerations, Lexis 6, 2010: (forthcoming).
DIFFLOTH Gerald, “i: big, a: small.”, in HINTON L., NICHOLS J., & OHALA J. J. (eds.), Sound
Symbolism, Cambridge University Press, 1994: 107-114.
GRANDI Nicola, Morfologie in contatto. Le costruzioni valutative nelle lingue del
Mediterraneo, Milano, 2002.
GREGOVÁ Renáta, KÖRTVÉLYESSY Lívia & ZIMMERMANN Július, “Phonetic Iconicity in the
Evaluative Morphology of a sample of Indo-European, Niger-Congo and Austronesian
Languages”, Word Structure 2010, Vol. 3, No. 2: 156-180.
GÜLDEMANN Tom, forthcoming. “Sprachraum and Geography”, in LAMELI Alfred, KEHREIN
Roland & RABANUS Stefan (eds.), The handbook of language mapping. Handbooks of
Linguistics and Communication Science Series, Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter.
JESPERSEN Otto, Essentials of English Grammar, London, Allen and Unwin.
HASPELMATH Martin, “The European linguistic area: Standard Average European”, in
HASPELMATH Martin, KÖNIG Ekkehard, OESTERREICHER Wulf & RAIBLE Wolfgang
(eds.), Language typology and language universals. (Handbücher zur Sprach- und
Kommunikationswissenschaft) Berlin, de Gruyter, 2001: 1492-1510.
HASPELMATH Martin et al., The World Atlas of Languages Online, Munich, Max Planck
Digital Library, 2008: Available online at http://wals.info/languoid#name
HEATH Jeffrey, A Grammar of Koyra Chiini, Mouton, 1999.
NIEUWENHUIS Paul, Diminutives, PhD. Dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1985.
POE Alan Edgar, The Raven, first published in 1845.
POE Alan Edgar, “The Philosophy of Composition”, Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XXVIII, no.
4, April 1846: 163-167.
PLANK Frans and FILIMONOVA Elena, The Universals Archive. Retrieved 10.10.2007 from
http://ling.uni-konstanz.de/pages/proj/sprachbau.htm
SAPIR, Edward, “A Study in Phonetic Symbolism” Journal of Experimental psychology Vol.
12, 1996: 225-239
ŠTEKAUER Pavol, On some Issues of Diminutives from a cross-linguistic Perspective,
unpublished paper, 2010.
ŠTEKAUER Pavol, GREGOVÁ Renáta, KOLAŘÍKOVÁ Zuzana, KÖRTVÉLYESSY Lívia &
PANOCOVÁ Renáta, “On phonetic iconicity in evaluative morphology. Languages of
Europe” in ŠTEKAUER, Pavol, TOMAŠČÍKOVÁ Slávka & WITAŁISZ Wladisław (eds),
Culture, Language and Literature Across Border Regions, Krosno, 2009.
ŠTEKAUER Pavol, SALVADOR Valera & KÖRTVÉLYESSY Lívia, Word-Formation in the
World’s languages. A typological survey, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (to
be published).
ULTAN Russel, “Size-sound symbolism”, in GREENBERG Joseph (ed.), Universals of Human
Language, Vol. 2., Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1978: 525-568.
© Lexis 2011
© Lexis 2011
When Small Is Many in the Event Domain

Lucia M. Tovena1
Abstract
This paper pursues the idea that event-internal pluractional verbs are morphologically
complex forms that describe non-canonical events and denote in the domain of events
constituted by pluralities of phases [Tovena 2010b]. Non-canonicity is understood in
comparative terms with respect to the description of the events provided by the corresponding
simplex verb forms. The leading question is what is the source of the multiplicative meaning
component in verb forms such as tagliuzzare and tossicchiare in Italian, and it is answered by
arguing that it arises from the use of diminutive morphology specifically to build verb forms
that describe modified events. Parallelisms with the nominal domain strengthen the case for a
characterisation of the word formation process as involving diminutive morphology. It is also
shown that the type of modification of an event description allowed by forming pluractional
verbs is generally more complex that by simple adverbial or PP adjunction, as it involves at
least two dimensions of the event. Furthermore, languages may use morphological
distinctions to mark different binary oppositions within Cusic’s three level system.
Keywords: diminutive suffixes – pluractionality – evaluative elements – verb formation – Italian –

French – Emerillon
***
Résumé
Dans cet article, nous développons l’idée que les verbes pluriactionnels à pluralité interne sont
des formes morphologiquement complexes qui décrivent des événements non-canoniques et
qui dénotent dans le domaine des événements constitués par des pluralités de phases [Tovena
2010b]. La non-canonicité se comprend en termes comparatifs par rapport à la description des
événements fournie par les formes verbales simples correspondantes.
Notre point de départ est la question de savoir quelle est la source de la composante de sens
multiplicative que l’on retrouve dans des verbes tels que tagliuzzare et tossicchiare de
l’italien. Notre réponse consiste à montrer qu’une telle multiplicité découle de l’emploi de la
morphologie diminutive pour former des verbes qui décrivent des événements modifiés. Nous
mettons au jour une forme de parallélisme entre le domaine nominal et le domaine verbal afin
de renforcer notre hypothèse qu’il s’agit bien de morphologie diminutive. Nous montrons que
la modification de l’événement obtenue par ce processus de formation de verbes (déverbaux
ainsi que dénominaux) est toujours au moins double, alors qu’une modification par le
truchement d’un adverbe ou d’un groupe prépositionnel ne concerne qu’une dimension à la
fois.
Mots-clés: morphologie diminutive – pluriactionnalité – éléments évaluatifs – formation de

verbes – italien – français – émérillon
1
Université Paris 7, France: tovena@linguist.jussieu.fr
© Lexis 2011
1. Introduction
The Italian pairs of verbs in (1) suggest that diminutive suffixes provide a morphological
device languages can exploit to create so-called frequentative verbs, i.e. forms whose meaning
include diminutive and multiplicative components.
(1) a. tagliare cut

tagliuzzare ‘cut into [*one/many] small pieces’
b. tossire ‘cough (once or many times)’2
tossicchiare ‘give [*one/many] small coughs’
The multiplicative meaning component does not show up in nominal forms modified by the
same affixes, cf. (2).
(2) a. filuzzosing = ‘one [single/*multiple] thin thread’

filuzziplu = ‘several [single/*multiple] thin threads’
b. governicchiosing = ‘one [single/*multiple] government of little value’
governicchiplu = ‘several [single/*multiple] governments of little value’
These data prompt several questions. What is the relation between the diminutive and the
multiplicative meaning components? Is it the base or the suffix that contributes the
multiplicative component to the overall verb meaning? How is it done? Is it really diminutive
morphology? We propose that all these questions point at relevant aspects of a single
derivational process of verb formation whereby diminutive suffixes contribute to creating new
verbs that denote singular complex-like events by overtly marking that the parts of the entity
whose structure should be homomorphic to the structure of the event are not properly
assembled. This is because the properties of the (semantic) thematic role that links such an
entity to the event are modified in a way that reduces cohesion [Tovena 2010c]. The type of
this complex-like event is the same as what event-internal pluractional verbs are meant to
describe, according to the characterisation proposed by Cusic [1981].
The structure of the paper is as follows. In section 2, we start by providing the intuition
regarding the type of situation that can be described by verbs of the group exemplified in (1),
and then recall the main properties of pluractional verbs and point out some issues in the
characterisation of the group under examination. The section concludes with the presentation
of the main features of the semantic analysis of event internal pluractionality that we adopt.
Its main assumption is that the parts of the event remain visible because they are not properly
added up to form a whole and this results in the perception of a predicate applied to a singular
entity by distributing it over its parts. We are then ready, in section 3, to pick up the issue of
the source of the multiplicative meaning component pointed at above. This multiplicative
component is not intrinsic in diminutive morphology, we argue, but surfaces as a result of
using diminutives to output verbal forms. Diminutive suffixes can be associated with different
semantic operations that are sketched out in analogy with what is generally assumed for
adjectives. The use of diminutive suffixes in pluractional verb formation is closer to the
process of creation of a new property of events than to modification of a word’s denotation
via a restriction of the property expressed by the base. Repeated parallelisms between verbal
and nominal domains give structure to the section. Last, section 4 discusses some general
2
This is a semelfactive verb, thus it has a reading corresponding to performing the action once, and another
reading corresponding to performing a sequence of acts.
© Lexis 2011
issues concerning expressions that realise pluractionality. A crucial difference between

morphologically complex verbs that express event-internal plurality and adverbially modified
verbs is that the former always express properties of events modified along at least two
dimensions, i.e. increase in frequency and decrease of one or more other dimensions.
Therefore, word formation of pluractional verbs by evaluative morphological marking gets
direct semantic justification. However, the process does not appear to be fully active in the
languages under examination. Finally, we observe that morphological complexity need not be
seen as the proper of a specific type of pluractionality. The two cases presented suggest that
the number opposition between event-internal plurality and event-external ones – i.e.
involving events or occasions – proposed by Cusic, is not the only option. Section 5 sums up
the main points.
2. Pluractionality
2.1. The intuition
Consider the Italian sentences in (3). The event described in (3a) is not shortened w.r.t.
(3b), nor is the apple shrunk, rather the diminutive modification concerns the property
describing the event (Aktionsart), and more specifically the way the direct object is used to
instantiate a thematic role.
(3) a. Mangiucchia la mela

S/he is eating at/eating on and off the apple
b. Mangia la mela
S/he is eating the apple
The sentence in (3b) describes the eating of the apple by an unspecified agent and does not
provide any special information about it. Abstracting away from the peculiarities of each
individual event, the hearer is entitled to infer that the sentence is about a normal state of
affairs. On the contrary, sentence (3a) specifies that the eating of the apple does not take place
in the standard way. Rather the action is described as being performed with a kind of reduced
engagement by the agent that shows in smaller bites and lack of continuity, and the
culmination is less easily inferred.
The difference between these sentences can be summarised by saying that in (3b) the
argument that stands in the Patient/Theme relation with the event, i.e. the apple, is perceived
as if it were instantiated ‘by instalments’ that are not referentially accessible—i.e.
disconnected little anonymous parts of the apple undergo the eating. This is reflected in the
emerging of the interpretive effect of multiplication. The semantic effect is double insofar as
the event appears as being fragmented into multiple subevents and each of them has a reduced
Patient/Theme.
2.2 Verb plurality
We propose that in (3a), diminutive morphology marks event-internal pluractionality

[Tovena 2007, 2010b]. Pluractionality [Dressler 1968; Newman 1980; Cusic 1981] is
concerned with the morphological expression of number inherent to the verb, different from
number agreement. Verbal plurality is often understood as plurality of events that may arise
from various sources, e.g. events taking place at subsequent times or in distinct places. These
© Lexis 2011
sources of multiplicity could be seen as the key in a form of distribution where the event
predicate would be the share.
Languages possess a variety of morphosyntactic tools to express different semantic forms
of repetition of (sub-)events, e.g. affixation, full or partial reduplication, or gemination. By
extension, cases where plural event information is conveyed by adverbials have also been
considered to be part of the phenomenon in the literature. A few examples, mainly from the
Romance set, are provided in (4).
(4) a. prefix, e.g. re-: reinstantiation of a predicate of event, e.g. rediscover, Fr. se
remarier ‘get married again’
b. adverbials, e.g. Fr. encore ‘still/yet/again’: reinstantiation within an information
structure, Fr. de nouveau ‘afresh’ [Tovena and Donazzan 2008]
c. word reduplication: reinstantiation with intensification, e.g. It. fuggi fuggi ‘run
away’ [Thornton 2007]
d. suffixation, e.g. evaluative suffixes: repeated partial instantiation, getting away from
the prototype, example (3a)
Cusic [1981] has proposed that verb plurality concerns several conceptual levels and has
defined a hierarchical arrangement of bounded units in three levels of structure, namely
occasions, events, and phases. Pluralisation is possible at each level, indicating ‘more than
one isomorphic bounded unit of that level’ [Cusic 1981: 69]. He then reorganises the levels
into two main types of pluralities. The first type, called event-external plurality, is a plurality
constituted by units of the event or superevent type, i.e. Cusic’s occasions. Time, locations or
participants can be seen as the key for a form of distribution. The second type is event –
internal plurality, which applies to cases where there are forms of multiplicity that have a
source that does not impact on the singularity of the event, and the events involve single
participants. When repetition takes place within the boundary of one event, phases are the
relevant temporal units, i.e. entities of a subevent type. More Romance examples of the event-
internal pluractional type are provided in (5):
(5) a. Italian mordicchiare ‘nibble several times’, dormicchiare ‘drowse’, piovigginare

‘drizzle’
b. French mordiller ‘nibble several times’, sautiller ‘hop’, neigeoter ‘snow a little’
c. Spanish mordisquear ‘nibble several times’, chupetear ‘suck a little and several
times’
Cusic does not take an explicit ontological commitment with respect to the original levels of
his hierarchy. In our understanding of his words, by choosing to reorganise them into two
groups, where events and occasions go together, and by giving a central role to events at least
in his terminological choices, he may be seen to suggest that events are the main level. We
endorse this position. He may also be taken to suggest that the bipartition resulting from
setting the number opposition between event-internal plurality and event-external plurality
holds across languages as the only option. We will see in section 4.3 that Emerillon, a
language of the Tupi-Guarani family, and Standard Arabic may offer counterexamples by
conveying number opposition at a higher level of the hierarchy, namely between phases or
events vs. occasions.
© Lexis 2011
2.3. Event-internal plurality
Two main subtypes of event-internal plurality have been identified by Cusic. The first,
that chiefly concerns this paper, is the decrease type, seen in (5) and that is also present in
English, e.g. twinkle. The second is the increase type, and is illustrated by the second form
(wazn) of verbs in Arabic, e.g. kassara ‘smash’, ḍarraba ‘beat up’. The analysis of forms of
event-internal pluractional verbs of the decrease type raises several questions, because they
can be traced to different sources. On the one hand, the morphological status of specific
components can be a matter of debate. For instance, in general derived verbs in Italian and
French are formed by prefixation, not by suffixation, but in this paperwe explore the
hypothesis that diminutive suffixes are involved in the formation of these verbs, not simple
submorphs. Note that, it is often assumed that pluractional verbs involve a step of derivational
morphology, whereas number marking in the nominal domain traditionally belongs to
inflectional morphology. On the other hand, the semantic nature of the components that are
invoked is not homogeneous across languages. Cusic says that the English verbs derive from
old iterative affixes -er, -le, quoting OED. Romance forms might derive from diminutive
affixes, as we propose at least for Italian. This variety is a challenge for compositional
semantics, since it forces semanticists to target one result, i.e. the characterisation of the
diminutive type of pluractionality, by going up partially distinct paths, i.e. the iterative or
diminutive content of the affixes. Event-internal pluractional verbs have been analysed by
Tovena [2007, 2010a] as denoting composite single events that result from distributing the
predicate on the fragments of one participant. This semantic analysis takes up the idea that
distributivity is a form of plurality. The main claim is that the properties of event internal
pluractionality can be captured by means of two specific operations of semantic
decomposition in the characterisation of the singular event. First, an event described by a
pluractional verb is a single event decomposed into a plurality of phases, i.e. the event is
locally fragmented into a plurality. Second, in this single event at least one participant is
decomposed into parts, and phases reflect the application of the predicate to the parts of the
participant demoted to a sum.
Key elements of this formal analysis are the constraint that the complex internal structure
of the single event described by the pluractional verb is a groupified plurality of phases.
Plurality is obtained by the joint effect of the plural operator ‘*’ [Link 1983] applied to the
event property and the application of the grinding operator [Landman 1991, 2000] to the
atomic affected participant. The cells of a cover weaker than the one having the atom as its
unique cell, are used as the parts over which the predicate is distributed. Next, the plurality of
phases is given the status of unit at event level by an operation of groupification [Landman
2000]. The step of groupification is lexicalised, as the verb does not make phases accessible.
Example (6) illustrates the fact that phases cannot be counted, as it can only be understood as
saying that there are two events of nibbling, not two little-bitings making up one nibbling.
The short dialogue in (7) shows that the duration of events can be compared, but not via
counting individual phases. The affected argument usually is the Patient/Theme in transitive
verbs. It is fragmented locally and the parts are not accessible at discourse referent level,
hence phases weakly exist as a reflection of the cells of a cover. The only accessible elements
are the variables for the event and the participants. This accounts for the connectedness of
event-internal plurals noted by Cusic.
(6) Daniele ha mordicchiato la matita due volte

Daniele nibbled the pencil two times
© Lexis 2011
(7) A: Daniele ha mordicchiato la matita più di Maria

Daniele nibbled the pencil more (= longer, ≠ more bitings) than Maria
B: * No, perché lei è più veloce.
No, because she is faster
Tovena [2010c] makes clear that fragmenting means crossing out the homomorphism between
the mereological structures of (one or more) entities whose properties provide scales and the
event. In the canonical case, the unfolding of the event ismeasured by adjacent isomorphic
transitions of the theme along a scale related to the event by Krifka’s [1998] Movement
Relation. On the other hand, in event-internal pluractional verbs, the correlation between a
dynamic predicate and a form of gradability is disrupted. The event description loses strict
incrementality measurable on an external scale, without losing the possibility of
comprisingmultiple changes. Duration and dynamicity are preserved, but ‘later in time’ does
not correlate with a higher degree on a scale, as expected in the canonical case. There is an
increment of energy consumed while duration increases, i.e. it is an activity and not a state,
but no specific unit or stage of the event (homogeneously identified) can be made correspond
to this increment (in any explicit way). Apparently no scale is traversed for describing the
energy consumed. For the sake of this paper, it is enough to assume that the correlation is
disrupted because the structure associated to the theme is not properly constructed out of the
parts. The faulty way the parts are put together when computing the measure of a dimension
relevant to the whole event may be the source of the interpretations of the diminutive and
augmentative subtypes mentioned above.
3. Evaluative morphology and pluractional verbs
In this section, some consequences of hypothesising that the exponent found in

pluractional verbs is related to evaluative morphology will be explored.
3.1. Pros and cons of invoking evaluative morphology
Invoking evaluativemorphologymakes less surprising the variety of forms found among

pluractional verbs in Italian and French. In French, evaluative morphology is not very
productive. Facts are clearer in Italian, a language whose productive evaluative suffixes, e.g.
-in, -ett, -ell, -uzz, form a large collection.
A possible drawback of calling into play this type of morphology is its problematic
status. Indeed, evaluative morphology does not fit nicely in the inflectional vs derivational
partition of morphology, according to several scholars. Scalise [1984]; Bauer [2004] have
underscored difficulties in its characterisation, and Scalise has explicitly excluded diminutives
from the derivational system. Stump [1993], on the contrary, has argued against granting it
special status. We will not summarise the debate, but we recall that all these authors agree on
the property of category preserving of evaluative affixation. For the topic of this paper, it is
worth noting that analysing the formation of pluractional verbs in terms of evaluative
suffixation would potentially add to the complexity of the debate, because pluractional
verbswould offer exceptions to the property of never changing the syntactic category of the
base, see the Italian forms in (8):
© Lexis 2011
(8) a. mordicchiare—mordereV ‘bite’

b. punteggiare—puntoN ‘dot’
One could try to show that nothing special has to be added for pluractional verbs concerning
this issue of whether the syntactic category of the base is always preserved by evaluative
morphology. This line of argumentation could rest on at least three points. First, a sort of
partial answer to the issue of potential exceptions to the preservation property comes from
diachronic facts. The issue is moot when the step of verb formation is subsequent to
evaluative modification. This is the case in denominal verbs for which verbalization is the last
step, e.g. French somnoler ‘drowse’ comes from the root of late Latin somnolentia, or Italian
sonnecchiare ‘drowse’ from Latin somniculus, which is a diminutive of somnus. It is moot
also in cases where the two steps are synchronous, e.g. macchiettare ‘dot’. Second, form
similarity is another possible explanation, as illustrated by the possibility that two verb forms
have been crossed, e.g. French cafouiller ‘shamble’ from cacher* and fouiller*. This is the
etymology proposed by CNRTL. Alternatively, cafouiller has Picard origin from fouiller and
a pejorative prefix ca-, according to the dictionary Petit Robert. In either case, we would have
derivation without evaluative suffixation. Third, there are also cases where there is only a step
of verb formation and no evaluative modification has ever taken place. For example, the
French verb pianoter ‘type on a keyboard’ is derived from the noun piano and means ‘tinkle
away’ when it is a piano keyboard. An epenthetic -t, together with the ending of the base,
seems to have been reanalysed as a latent consonant belonging to the affix -ot, interpreted as
one of the marks of the pluractional group of verbs, possibly as the diminutive affix. The
pluractional interpretation has been available from the start. Verbs for playing musical
instruments in French follow an altogether different path as a regular process.
Alternatively, the issue of potential exceptions to the property of category preserving can
be tackled by assuming that different answers correlate with different semantic processes, that
is such a property characterises the behaviour of diminutive suffixes in their working as
degree/quantitymodifiers, but not in their working as pluractional suffixes, which will be set
on the same side as quality modifiers. In order to explore this tack, we start from observations
concerning the nominal domain.
3.2. Semantic operations and category preservation in nominal evaluative

suffixation
The first point we want to make in this section concerns the variety of semantic
operations that can be performed by adding evaluative suffixes. Diminutive suffixes exhibit a
double behaviour in the nominal domain, as it can be inferred from previous descriptions, cf.
Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi [1994], Jurafsky [1996] among others. On the one hand,
diminutives may say something about the referent of the NP by restricting the property
predicated of it, e.g. in Italian an entity that is a librino is a libro ‘book’ and is small, i.e. the
derived form denotes in a subset of the original denotation domain.
On the other hand, diminutives may help to form a new property whose denotation can be
an altogether different set of entities, e.g. the denotation of It. fiorino ‘florin’ is a set of coins
and is not a set of little flowers. The historical link between the two words is a different, albeit
important, issue. It concerns the reason why a language has used a given element (here
flower) to create a new word (here the name of a coin), not the possibility itself.
It is worth underscoring that this second behaviour corresponds to a lexicalised derivative
step. More importantly, it does not always satisfy the property of category preservation.
Nouns of small instruments offer another relevant example of suffixation accompanied by
© Lexis 2011
category change, e.g. scaldareV – scaldinoN ‘warm, [hand/bed] – warmer’ or accendereV –

accendinoN ‘switch on, lighter’ [Lo Duca 2004; Merlini Barbaresi 2004]. On the contrary, the
first behaviour is strictly category preserving.
The second point worth emphasising is that this variety of semantic operations associated
with evaluative suffixation is strongly reminiscent of the debate on the semantic
characterisation of adjectives. Syntactically, adjectives can enter two main types of
constructions, namely they can be used as prenominal or attributive modifiers, as in (9a), or
be used predicatively, as in (9b) :
(9) a. Fido is a brown/big/good dog

b. Fido is brown/big/good
Semantically, they may denote properties, e.g. the property of being brown, and give rise to
intersective interpretations [Montague 1974], e.g. Fido is a member of the intersection
between the set of brown things and the set of dogs. Set intersection is formally represented
by logical conjunction, i.e. Fido is brown and is a dog. Adjectives may also give rise to
subsective interpretations [Montague 1974], e.g. Fido may be a big dog but not be considered
to be big in more general terms. In this case, the property denoted by the noun is entailed, and
the adjective carves out a subset denoted by the property big dog. No independent ‘bigness’
property is assumed and no intersection is computed. The adjective is formally analysed as a
functor applying to the noun to return a new property. This is typically the case of degree or
measure adjectives. It is open to debate whether gradable adjectives are never intersective, i.e.
whether they can sometimes be analysed as denoting properties of individuals, which are
functions from entities to truth values and are represented as semantic predicates of type
< e, t >, or are functions from properties to properties, i.e. are semantic modifiers and get the
semantic type << e, t >,< e, t >>. We cannot do justice to the complexity of the debate on this
important point in this paper.3 What is relevant for us is that (9b) can be interpreted as saying
that Fido is big as a dog, i.e. with respect to the set of dogs as in (9a) and discussed above, but
also that it is big with respect to a different class of comparison constituted by a set of entities
relevant in the context.4 Finally, evaluative adjectives, like good, are interpreted relatively to
the noun they modify, like degree adjectives. Like degree adjectives, they are not intersective
modifiers, Luisa is a beautiful dancer does not entail Luisa is beautiful [Siegel, 1976]. They
differ from degree adjectives insofar as their interpretation depends also on a given criterion,
beside the comparison class. For instance, if Luisa is a good dancer, it is not enough for her to
be the best of her poor quality classmates, she must be good according to a general standard
of evaluation.
Going back to our discussion on the semantic processes that can be associated to
diminutive suffixation, we can substantiate our initial distinction. Notice that diminutive
suffixes would differ from gradable adjectives at least on the fact that their comparison class
would always be overtly provided by the base they combine with. Like evaluative adjectives,
they may be interpreted according to a standard, i.e. a librino is small or thin with respect to
the usual size for books. The first behaviour identified at the beginning of this section is
consistent with these points and corresponds to the subsective interpretation of adjectives.
Conversely, the second behaviour corresponds to a case of non-intersective interpretation. The
new property denoted by the suffixed noun may have only figurative or remote links with the
denotation of the base noun. This conclusion is all the more plausible if we recall that when
the adjective combines with the noun like a function with an argument, habitually the
3
We refer the reader to Montague [1974] and Siegel [1976] for two classic diverging views.
4
For instance, it can be a big pet when compared to a gold fish and still be a small dog.
© Lexis 2011
intension of the expressions is invoked. The natural conclusion is that derivational

morphology typically affects the semantic type of linguistic expressions and is associated with
semantic operations on intensions.
3.3. Verbal evaluative morphology
The same double behaviour found with respect to nominals is to be observed in the
domain of events.
3.3.1. Getting multiplication from verb modification
Let us look at the two behaviours in reverse order, starting from the case where
pluractional verbs fit in. Diminutives help to define a new property of events, e.g. we have
seen that in example (3a) Gianni mangiucchia la mela, the existence of a single event is not
questioned with respect to (3b) Gianni mangia la mela, the duration of the event is not
affected nor the size of a participant, rather the diminutive modification concerns the
progression of the event, the way the direct object gets used to instantiate a thematic role in
the event. Whatever dimension can be used in the canonical realisation of the event in order to
measure the incremental development of the event and can match its increased duration, it is
no longer information available in the pluractional case.
This modification that takes into consideration the participants in an event is available for
verbs but not for nouns and yields the interpretive effect of multiplication. The thematic role
relates the whole entity ‘apple’ to the event, but the relation is instantiated ‘by instalments’
that are not organised in an ordered incremental structure. This has the effect of making the
part-of structure visible and sort of ‘multiplying’ reduced local themes, which results in the
diminutive type of the event-internal pluractional meaning of the verb. The verb category of
the output is the crucial part of the derivational process, while the base can be an idealised
form, existent or not, and verbal or not, e.g. what said for deverbal mangiucchiare applies for
non-deverbal punteggiare. However, deverbal cases anchor the extension by analogy, which
works under the hypothesis that there is a modified thematic grid.
In the literature on aspect, the link between the properties of the direct object NP and the
aspectual properties of the VP has been explored in depth. As it can be expected, if
pluractionality is an operation that records the modification of the canonical unfolding of an
event, it should have aspectual consequences. Indeed, the direct object can no longer properly
measure out the event [Dowty 1979; Tenny 1994; Krifka 1998], hence telicity is affected, cf.
the possibility of modifying examples like (3a) with an adverbial of duration, whereas (3b) is
modified by an adverbial of measure (10) :
(10) a. Gianni ha mangiucchiato la mela per dieci minuti

Gianni has been eating at the apple for ten minutes
b. Gianni ha mangiato la mela in dieci minuti
Gianni has been eating at the apple in ten minutes
Diminutives can also work as modifiers that restrict the meaning like measure adjectives. This
produces a subsective interpretation and corresponds to the first behaviour identified for noun
modification above. For instance, ‘speak a little a foreign language’, e.g. English, can be
expressed by adverbial modification (parlare un po’ l’inglese) or by suffixation (parlicchiare
l’inglese) in colloquial Italian. An analogous example is provided by colloquial French
detestouiller ‘dislike a bit’. This modification concerns one dimension of the description,
© Lexis 2011
whose measure is lowered. This point is very important for the characterisation of the class of
verbs and we will come back to it. But for the issue we are discussing in this paragraph, what
matters most from the semantic point of view is that the internal structure of the event is not
altered. Its progression is is not affected, it is the total value of one dimension that is required
to be low/below the standard. In the example in hand, the competence that is attested by the
sample of English language produced by the speaker is claimed to be very limited. And from
the morphological point of view, what matters is that this modification is not lexicalised,
concerns deverbal verbs and thus is category preserving, and does not undergo the same
aspectual constraints.
3.3.2. A morphological regularity in conjugation class
The hypothesis that diminutive morphology is involved in pluractional verb formation is

supported also from evidence with respect to conjugation classes. Notice the contrast between
the uniformity of the group of pluractional verbs in Italian and French, as they all belong to
the first conjugation class (respectively -are and -er), and the variety of conjugations found
among the corresponding non-pluractional forms, when they exist. This difference might
seem unexpected, since derivation should not affect inflection. However, ifwe take amore
inclusive look at the peculiarities of diminutive morphology, we can read this difference as
representing precisely the verbal counterpart of the effect of inflection ‘normalization’ found
with evaluative morphology in the nominal domain. Let’s look at Italian, where it is easy to
identify classes in inflectional morphology of nouns.
Nominal domain
Evaluative morphology in the nominal domain has the effect of converting all nouns into
one single morphological class. Italian has three main inflectional classes for nouns,
exemplified in (11):
(11)
Singular Plural
1 masculine libr-o libr-i ‘book’
feminine favol-a favol-e ‘fairy tale’
2 masculine poet-a poet-i ‘poet’
feminine al-a al-a ‘wing’
3 masculine dolor-e dolor-i ‘pain’
feminine nav-e nav-i ‘ship’
Nouns from the three classes inflect all according to the most stable class, given as the first
block in (11) and here called the first class, when they are modified by evaluative morphology
[Merlini Barbaresi 2004]:
(12)
Singular Plural
masculine librin-o librin-i ‘small book’
feminine favolett-a favol-e ‘small fairy tale’
masculine poetin-o poetin-i ‘little poet’
feminine alucci-a alucc-e ‘small wing’
masculine dolorett-o dolorett-i ‘little pain’
feminine navicell-a navicell-e ‘little ship’
© Lexis 2011
Verbal domain
The same effect of ‘normalisation’ is found in the verbal domain, where the first
conjugation works as default class (numbers refer to the traditional classification of
conjugation classes).
(13) a. salt-are1 ‘hop’ saltell-are1

b. piov-ere2 ‘rain’ pioviggin-are1
c. toss-ire3 ‘cough’ tossicchi-are1
It can be hypothesized that the same holds for French, but the effect is obscured by the
reduced productivity of evaluative derivation and the debatable existence of inflectional
classes in the nominal domain.
4. Expressing verbal plurality
In this last section, we discuss some general issues concerning expressions that realise
pluractionality. Diminutive pluractionals are perceived as describing a situation as
noncanonical, so we start by considering what it means to lexically modify an event
description. Subsequently, we will consider which type of number opposition can be
expressed by morphological differences.
4.1. Modifying an event description
A situation described by an event-internal pluractional verb is presented as modified with

respect to a canonical one, which can be viewed as setting the standard or constituting the
prototype. Furthermore, verbs of the diminutive type are often perceived as colloquial and
pejorative forms. Pluractionality of the diminutive type is not restricted to diminutive
affixation across languages. The analysis pursued in this paper extends to languages that
express diminution through morphological devices other than suffixation.
Let us first consider the non-canonical nature of the situation described. Adverbs and PPs
are typical instances of constituents that help modifying an event description. The
modification realised via a pluractional form semantically differs in a crucial way from what
can be done by adverbs and PPs insofar as it concerns at least two dimensions of the
description. It always involves increase in frequency and diminution along a different
dimension, at least one and possibly more. Typical cases are a decrease in the portion of the
entity affected (14a), the amount of will or energy required (14b), the linear length of the
paths covered (14c), the output obtained (14d), the sound amplitude (14e):
(14) a. mordicchiare ‘nibble’

b. vivacchiare ‘live from hand to mouth’, saltellare ‘hop’
c. gironzolare ‘go around aimelessly’
d. piovigginare ‘drizzle’
e. tossicchiare ‘cough lightly and repeatedly’
Clear multiple dimension decrease is illustrated in (15) :
© Lexis 2011
(15) leggiucchiare ‘read for short time spans and with little attention, small parts of text’,
sonnecchiare ‘drowse, sleep lightly and for short time spans’
Finally, the choice of the affected participant follows the schema according to which NPs are
taken into account when evaluating Aktionsart5, e.g. telicity, or more generally the argument
whose change is measured by a scale correlated to the progression of the event. It can be the
hidden theme in verbs whose meaning is the coming into being of a metereological event, as
in Fr. negeoter ‘snow a little’ and (14d). It can also be the internal object in intransitive verbs
as in vivacchiare (14b).
Diminutive morphology helps us to capture the colloquial and pejorative flavour of the
description. Expressing a biased assessment is what an evaluative form is expected to do.
Expressing a shade of reduction is what diminutives should do.
4.2. Frozen pluractionals
Taking stock, we have provided several arguments for a semantic characterization of the
class of verbs, and reasons for its morphological analysis. One could still wonder whether the
pairing of modified–canonical description of a situation is the result of a derivational word
formation step or, instead, it is a formal similarity with diminutives that triggers the
search/hypothesis of matching simplex forms. Before we leave the matter, it is worth
considering once more the strength of our arguments. As for Italian and French, it would be
too weak to conclude that there is no unique morphological criterion that applies in all cases.
It is true that beside good examples of simple-derived pairs such as French mordre vs.
mordiller ‘nibble’, there are fewer but equally good counterexamples such as denominal
pluractional pianoter. However, the fact that they have undergone retroanalysis from the start
argues in favour of the perception of a morphosemantic correspondence rather than against it.
As for semantics, there is a strong perception of semantic coherence in the class. Good
examples are provided by forms such as French derived pluractional mordiller, spurious
counterexamples are verbs like those in (16).
(16) a. Italian frammentare ‘fragment’, oscillare ‘oscillate’

b. French fragmenter, osciller
These cases are not relevant because do not fit in the semantic characterisation. Indeed,
‘fragment’ is a verb that describe a simple action whose result is to get the entity instantiating
the object into pieces, but that is not composite itself. As for ‘oscillate’, it describes a
composite action made up of subevents that somehow can be singled out because their order
cannot be altered. No order can be imposed on the set of phases denoted by an event internal
plural verb. Note that the cases in (16) are morphologically not relevant, since they are
simplex forms. Note also that modification is possible in verbs describing repeated
movements, cf. (17). In this case, the morphologically complex form tremolare adds a weaker
touch to the description of the action.
(17) tremare ‘shake’ vs. tremolare ‘shiver’
We would rather conclude that we have a convergence of morphological and semantic

characterisations that strengthen each other. Form and meaning can be said to work hand in
hand in providing motivation for this class of verbs and substance to it.
5
To be more precise, number morphology, case marking, transitivity and telicity correlate, see Durie [1986].
© Lexis 2011
We further notice that the process of producing event-internal pluractional verbs, in the
sense of association of a form to a meaning, is not very active. For instance, in Italian the
sizeable set of diminutive suffixes that was available for verbs is currently shrinking to the
triad -acchi/ucchi/icchi- [Grandi 2007], although it remains available in full for the nominal
domain. This is to say that verbs like gironzolare ‘wander’ are no longer created in Italian. In
French, the situation is even more clearcut, as diminutive affixation is no longer productive in
nominal as well as verbal domains. This situation may suggest to extend to them the status of
frozen pluractionals, proposed in the literature for instance for a language like Bole [Schuh
and Gimba 2000]. According to Schuh and Gimba [2000], frozen pluractionals are verbs
whose unmodified roots are no longer in use and derived forms that do not convey obvious
pluractional meaning. The first case is the relevant one for English, for instance. In English,
verbs like nibble or sparkle are no longer perceived as morphologically complex. They are no
longer perceived as semantically complex either, i.e. involving the modification of several
dimensions. They have lost the multiplicative meaning component, e.g. nibble can be used to
describe an event of giving a single small bite, and this diminution is the only meaning left.6
If the loss of the pluractional flavour is made to correspond with the possibility of restauring
the homomorphism between mereological structures of object(s) and event, then the effect of
diminution can only be evaluated on the total value of one dimension. This is the situation
characterised by a subsective interpretation at the end of section 3.3.1.
Whether the characterisation of frozen form should be applied also to the Italian and
French verbs is less clear. On the one hand, it would help us to capture the observation that
the morphological contribution may be an artefact. Some forms come from a different origin
and have been reanalysed according to a derivational schema in order to be integrated into a
paradigm. The status of frozen forms is compatible with a degree of transparency in form or
meaning, as in Italian, or with no longer transparent forms, as it seems the case for French and
English. On the other hand, it does not fit in well with the fact that the multiplicative
interpretation of these verbs cannot be cancelled as a mere implicature, and with the actual
(albeit reduced) productivity of the process.
4.3. On the level of plurality
As we have seen, a crucial difference between morphologically complex verbs that

express event-internal plurality and adverbially modified verbs is that the former always
express properties of events modified along at least two dimensions, i.e. increase in frequency
and decrease of one or more other dimensions. Thus, the type of word formation by evaluative
morphological marking under examination gets direct semantic justification. However,
languages may use differential marking or degrees of morphological complexity to express an
opposition within Cusic’s three level system that is not necessarily the opposition he
identified.
Cusic’s understanding that languages exploit the same linguistic devices to get a plurality
of events and of occasions, is behind his reorganising the system from a three levels hierarchy
to the bipartition between event internal vs. event external pluralities that is widely accepted.
He supports his claim with English data on the interpretation of adverbials, taken to show that
the main opposition is between singularity and plurality at the level of event, and that plurality
at the level of occasions is obtained when a second adverbial can support a second
6
Nibble is a semelfactive verb. What is important to underscore is the fact that the ‘once only’ reading is
available in English but not in Italian and French for the morphologically complex forms mordicchiare and
mordiller.
© Lexis 2011
distribution. For instance, (18a) says that there are several events and by default we infer that
there is one occasion. One reading of sentence (18b) says that there is one event that is
repeated at several occasions:
(18) a. The boy shouted again and again

b. Again and again the boy shouted on Tuesday
However, it seems that there are languages that convey number opposition at the interface
between event and occasion as themain piece of information. This could be the case in
Emerillon, a language of the Tupi-Guarani family, recently discussed by Rose [2007]. Rose
matches the morphological opposition between monosyllabic and disyllabic reduplication
with the semantic opposition identified by Cusic. More precisely, monosyllabic reduplication
of verb forms is said to result in interpretations as event-internal plurality, and disyllabic
reduplication to result in interpretations as event-external plurality. However, she needs to
invoke ongoing diachronic change to say why this match, presented as typical of the
languages of the Tupi-Guarani family, is sometimes blurred in Emerillon. Let us take a closer
look at some of her data, starting from disyllabic reduplication. In example (19), we see
disyllabic reduplication of the verb, singular subject, and the interpretation is a plurality of
events with no strict temporal contiguity.
(19) õhẽ-õ-hem-ne o-?a

RED-3-sortir-CONTRAST 3-tomber
‘Il ressort encore et tombe’ (he gets out again and falls)
Now, let’s look at monosyllabic reduplication. In example (20), we see monosyllabic

reduplication, plural subject, and the interpretation is a plurality of events in strict temporal
contiguity or simultaneity.
(20) amõ kito-kom õ-hẽ-hem

autre grenouille-PL 3-RED-sortir
‘Les autres grenouilles sortent’ (the other frogs get out)
Example (21), where we see monosyllabic reduplication and plural subject, helps us to check
that plural NP need not be taken collectively, since the sentence contains a distributive marker
that forces the sequential interpretation. Still, strict temporal contiguity is enforced:
(21) tapig ze-kap1ReR-ne ?ɨ-b o-po-poR o-ho-ŋ

plouf REFL-derrière-CONTRAST eau-dans 3-RED-sauter 3-aller-PL
‘Elles plongent dans l’eau l’une derrière l’autre’ (they dive into the water one
after the other)
Finally, in example (22), we see monosyllabic reduplication and singular subject:
(22) ãdudʒa wɨɾa o-su-su?u

rat bois 3-RED-mordre
‘Le rat a rongé le bois’ (the rat nibbled the wood)
It appears that connectedness, one of the parameters of classification used by Cusic in his
thesis, is a crucial piece of information. Monosyllabic reduplication matches with strictly
contiguous or simultaneous situations, whereas disyllabic reduplication matches with lack of
© Lexis 2011
temporal contiguity. The data presented by Rose can therefore support the alternative
interpretation whereby the main opposition encoded by Emerillon via the two patterns of
reduplication is the following. Monosyllabic reduplication correlates with interpretations
conveying information on pluralities of events or phases that are all mapped into a single
occasion, as if they where necessarily grouped beforehand. Disyllabic reduplication
corresponds to interpretations where pluralities of events are distributed over different
occasions. Next, monosyllabic reduplication can interact with nominal number to provide
further specifications, because nominal number can function as a secondary sorting key.
Singular nominal number matches with plurality of phases and plural nominal number
matches with plurality of events.
This reanalysis of the Emerillon data embodies an event oriented perspective on the
phenomenon and is fully compatible with the idea of the centrality of events in the hierarchy.
The original tripartite system set up by Cusic can accommodate it, whereas this is less
obvious for the reorganised system, where always talking of repeated actions as event-internal
pluralities could turn out to be a bit of a misnomer in Emerillon. Crucial examples are (20)
and (21) where the persons who constitute the referent of a plural NP subject execute an
action individually and in succession and yet the verb exhibits monosyllabic reduplication. In
this type of sentence, the parts of the event hardly qualify as phases, although it may be said
that the event is described as a (structured) whole, as expected given the type of reduplication.
Arabic provides another interesting case of potential misalignement with respect to
Cusic’s event-based bipartition. The relevant interpretative variation is observed with respect
to some of the verbs of the second form (the wazn with gemination of the second consonant of
the root). Standard Arabic exhibits event-internal pluractionality of the increase type, and
verbs of this second form group work as increase pluractionals but they also might distribute
over a collective patient. For instance, the verb jarraḥa, which means to inflict many wounds
on a single entity, might distribute over a collective patient and be interpreted as ‘wound
many’ with intensivemeaning but no clear specification that each one element of the
collectivity gets many wounds, adapting from [Fassi-Fehri 2003]. This interpretation is
possible when the entity realising the theme admits plural interpretation.7 This behaviour, in
our opinion, has to do with the choices a language make for marking the levels of Cusic’s
hierarchy. It can be accounted for by making the same assumption adopted for Emerillon, that
is that morphological marking via the second form in Arabic does not distinguish between
event-internal vs. event-external plurality in the way Cusic has defined, but between plurality
of phases and events vs. plurality of occasions. Evidence in support of this analysis comes
from the fact that the ‘wound many’ reading cannot apply to a situation where the wounding
of the entities is sparse in time, where sparse in time means that distinct events are mapped
onto distinct occasions. This impossibility is not expected if the reading is treated as a case of
event-external plurality.
Summing up, in this section we have presented empirical evidence supporting the
assumption that the bipartition that Cusic imposes on his three level hierarchy – with
pluralities of phases expressed by morphological devices that differ from those used for
events and occasions – is just one of the options available to languages. Before we conclude,
let us mention the French data in (23) that provide further evidence that a language may use
specialised devices to say whether events are distributed or not over occasions.
(23) a. Daniel a sonné deux fois
7
The same effect, in reverse, can be observed when the English verb massacre is applied to a singular patient.
© Lexis 2011
Daniel rang the bell two times

b. Daniel a sonné à deux reprises
Daniel rang the bell two times
Sentence (23a) is ambiguous between a reading where two ringing events make up a plural
event mapped onto one occasion, for instance if Daniel went to the door once and pressed the
button twice, and a reading where ringing events are distributed over two occasions, for
instance if Daniel went twice to the door and rang the bell. Notice that in this second case,
nothing specific is said about the number of ringing events making up each occasion, but this
could be added :
(24) Daniel a sonné deux fois à deux reprises

Daniel rang the bell two times twice
On the contrary, sentence (23b) only exhibits a reading where ringing events are distributed
over two occasions. The word reprise looks as a classifier specialised for counting events via
the occasions they belong to, and not counting events directly.
Concluding remarks
In this paper, we have pursued the idea that event internal pluractional verbs denote
composite single events. Multiplicity of phases is the reflex of a disrupted correlation between
a scale/scales measuring a dimension/dimensions and the progression of the event.
The initial question of what is the source of the multiplicative meaning component in
verb forms such as tagliuzzare and tossicchiare in Italian, has been answered by arguing that
it arises from the use of diminutive morphology in building verb forms that describe non-
canonical events. Two semantic operations can be associated with diminutive suffixation,
their working in the verbal and nominal domain is similar but the verbal or nominal categories
of the outputs open different possibilities.
We have also emphasised that in Romance, although it may be difficult to point to a word
formation rule for all cases, morphological form plays a role, since similarity of form triggers
pluractional interpretation. A semantic criterion appears to be stronger. We propose that form
and meaning together provide motivation for the class of eventinternal pluractional verbs and
substance to it.
Finally, we have underscored that in event-internal pluctionality, at least two dimensions
of the event are modified and that languages may use morphological distinctions to mark
different binary oppositions within Cusic’s three level system.
Bibliography
BAUER Laurie, “The function of word-formation and the inflection-derivation distinction”, in
AERTSE Henk, HANNAY Mike & LYALL Rod (eds.), Words in their places. A Festschrift
for J. Lachlan Mackenzie, Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit, 2004: 283-292.
CUSIC David, Verbal plurality and aspect, Ph.D. thesis, University of Stanford, 1981.
DOWTY David R., Word meaning and Montague grammar, Dordrecht, Reidel, 1979.
DRESSLER Wolfgang, Studien zur verbalen Pluralität, Wien, Österreichische Akademie der
Wissenschaft, Phil-Hist, 1968.
© Lexis 2011
DRESSLER Wolfgang & MERLINI BARBARESI Lavinia, Morphopragmatics: diminutive and

intensifiers in Italian, German and other languages, Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter, 1994.
DURIE Mark, “The grammaticization of number as a verbal category”, Proceedings of the
Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 1986: 355-370.
FASSI-FEHRI Abderkader, “Verbal plurality, transitivity, and causativity”, in LECARME
Jacqueline (ed.), Research in Afroasiatic Grammar II, Amsterdam, Benjamins, 2003:
151-185.
GRANDI Nicola, “I verbi valutativi in italiano tra azione e aspetto”, Studi di Grammatica
Italiana XXIV, 2007:153-188.
JURAFSKY Dan, “Universal tendencies in the semantics of the diminutive”, Language 72,
1996: 533-578.
KRIFKA Manfred, “The origins of telicity”, in ROTHSTEIN Susan (ed.), Events and Grammar,
Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1998: 197-235.
LANDMAN Fred, Structures for semantics, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, Dordrecht,
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.
LANDMAN Fred, Events and plurality, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Press, 2000.
LINK Godehard, “The logic analysis of plural and mass terms: a lattice theoretical approach”,
in BÄUERLE Rainer, SCHWARZE Christoph & VON STECHOW Arnim (eds.), Meaning,
Use and Interpretation of Language, de Gruyter, 1983: 302-323.
LO DUCA Maria, “Derivazione nominale deverbale. Nomi di strumento”, in GROSSMANN
Maria & RAINER Franz (eds.), La formazione delle parole in italiano, Tubingen,
Niemeyer, 2004: 227-233.
MERLINI BARBARESI Lavinia, “Alterazione”, in GROSSMANN Maria & RAINER Franz (eds.),
La formazione delle parole in italiano, Tübingen, Niemeyer, 2004: 264-292.
MONTAGUE Richard, “English as a formal language”, in THOMASON Richmond H. (ed.),
Formal philosophy, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1974: 188-221.
NEWMAN Paul, The classification of Chadic within Afroasiatic, Leiden, Universitaire Pers,
1980.
ROSE Françoise, “Action répétitive et action répétée: aspect et pluralité verbale dans la
réduplication en émérillon”, Faits de langues 29, 2007: 125-143.
SCALISE Sergio, Generative Morphology, Dordrecht, Foris, 1984.
SCHUH R. G. & GIMBA A. M., A grammar of Bole, ms. USC and University of Mojimbo,
2000.
SIEGEL Muffy, Capturing the adjective, Ph.D. thesis, University of Massachussets at
Amherst, 1976.
STUMP Greg, “How peculiar is evaluative morphology”, Journal of linguistics 29, 1993: 1-36.
TENNY Carol, Aspectual roles and the syntax-semantics interface, Dordrecht, Kluwer
Academic Publishers, 1994.
THORNTON Anna M., “Italian reduplicated imperatives as instances of verbal plurality”, talk,
Pluralité nominale et verbale, Paris 9-10 November 2007.
TOVENA Lucia M., “A class of pluractional verbs in Italian and French”, handout, Semantics
beyond set theory, Paris 25 October 2007.
TOVENA Lucia M., “Pluractional verbs that grammaticise number through the part-of
relation”, in KAMPERS-MANHE Brigitte, BOK-BENNEMA Reineke & HOLLEBRANDSE
Bart (eds.), Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2008, Amsterdam, John
Benjamins, 2010a.
TOVENA Lucia M., “Pluractionality and the unity of the event”, in ALONI Maria & SCHULZ
Katrin (eds.), Amsterdam Colloquium 2009, Heidelberg, Springer, 2010b: 465-473.
TOVENA Lucia M., “The imperfect measure of internally plural events”, in BEZHANISHVILI
© Lexis 2011
Nikoloz, LOEBNER Sebastian, SCHWABE Kerstin & SPADA Luca (eds.), Logic, Language
and Computation, Eighth Tbilisi Symposium, Heidelberg, Springer, 2010c.
TOVENA Lucia M. & DONAZZAN M., “On ways of repeating”, Recherches Linguistiques de
Vincennes 37, Thematic issue, TOVENA Lucia (ed.), Aspect et pluralité d’événements,
2008: 85-112.
© Lexis 2011
Suffixal Diminutives and Augmentatives in Slovak

A Systemic View with Some Cross-Linguistic Considerations
Ada Böhmerová1
Abstract
The paper primarily focuses on the synchronical suffixal means forming diminutives and
augmentatives in Slovak, presenting a basic research in these areas. It is aimed at their
identification, distribution in the particular word-classes, systemic status within evaluative
morphology, and the analysis of some of the semantic features and pragmatic aspects of
suffixal diminutives and augmentatives. Included are also several cross-linguistic
considerations within the wider context of some of the relevant phenomena.
Keywords: evaluative morphology – onomasiological category – synchronic view –

diminutives – augmentatives – morphological analysis – word-classes – semantic and
pragmatic functions
1
Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovak Republic: bohmerovaada@yahoo.com
© Lexis 2011
Introduction
This paper is intended as a contribution to the recently foregrounding interest in the
research of the presence of evaluative morphology in languages of the world. It identifies and
analyzes the suffixal diminutive and augmentative morphs present in Slovak, a Central-
European West-Slavic language, their distribution, systemic place and communicative
functions, devoting attention to phenomena and features that are linguistically rather wide-
spread or are more language-specific in this onomasiological category.
It arose as part of a more extensive study focusing on contrastive research of the status of
suffixal diminutives and augmentatives and their communicative functions in Slovak and in
English, in search of the possible synchronical as well as diachronical typological and genetic
reasons for the existing systemic differences.
The present paper deals with morphological derivative means of quantitative evaluation
from the formal and functional points of view. While the descriptive approach to linguistic
phenomena constitutes a principal part of any analysis, their systemic communicative role can
only be revealed through functional linguistic analysis advocated for e.g. already by
Mathesius [1929] and the later members of the Prague School of Linguistics, above all
Vachek [1964]. The need for such approach is stressed also in more recent linguistics [cf.
Horecký 1978], and in connection with the research of English diminutives e.g. by Schneider
[2003].
Though suffixal diminutives and augmentatives are a common and frequent phenomenon
in the Slovak language, during the research it became evident that the extent of descriptive
and theoretical materials concerning the theme is rather modest, limited to very brief mentions
in textbooks, with the exception of some in-depth analyses of several specific sub-themes, but
with no detailed treatment of these morphological evaluative means.
Hence, before proceeding to any synthetic statements it was necessary to carry out the
basic morphological analysis of the system of suffixal diminutives and augmentatives in
Slovak the results of which form part of the paper.
With regard to the approach that we have selected, this paper is not data-based per se, in
the sense that it does not investigate a particular set of excerpted or textually or otherwise
collected or generated data, but it comprizes a variety of data excerpted from linguistic
monographs, textbooks, articles, dictionaries (including corpus-based ones), as well as and
empirical native-speaker experience.
Internationally, the recent interest in evaluative morphology is manifested in a number of
publications, whether oriented upon one language or cross-linguistically, much of the impetus
having been given by Scalise [1984]. A challenging multilingual and universal view of
evaluative morphology is presented by Stump [1993] and Bauer [1997], and from among
numerous other sources, diminutives in Italian, German and some other languages are
compared by Dressler and Merlini Barbaressi [1994], while Schneider [2003] devotes his
monograph to a very thorough research and presentation of diminutives in English. Within the
specific themes of evaluative morphology much investigation has been done in search of
phonetic symbolism in e.g. by Bauer [1996], and more recently by Štekauer et al. [2009],
Gregová and Panocová [2009], and Körtvélyessy [2010].
As to comparisons with Slovak, papers on evaluative morphology include e.g. Gladkova
[2010] dealing with diminutives and augmentatives in Bulgarian and Slovak, Nábělková
[2010] and Gladkova [2010] comparing Czech and Slovak as very closely related Slavic
languages. From the point of view of their occurrence in translations of literary texts into and
from English, English and Czech diminutives were scrutinized by Chamonikolasová &
Rambousek [2007], and Káňa [2010] recently analyzed Czech substantival diminutives and
their counterparts in German and in English.
© Lexis 2011
With regard to Slovak itself, no detailed systemic research of the situation concerning
morphological evaluative diminutives and augmentatives has been found, and the situation is
similar also in the sphere of comparing these linguistic phenomena in Slovak with the ones in
English or within multilingual considerations. However, cross-linguistic comparisons are a
desideratum as they can not only result in identifying the parallelisms and differences between
the languages studied, but from the perspective of a foreign language can help to reveal some
phenomena and systemic relationships otherwise not fully evident in the particular language,
as well as assist in seeing the linguistic situation in wider linguistic contexts.
In this paper Section 1 presents the theoretical background of the theme, Section 2
formulates the aims and method followed in the research, Section 3 deals with the general
characteristics of means of quantitative evaluation in Slovak, Section 4 is devoted to suffixal
diminutives in various word-classes, section 5 to augmentatives, Sections 6 and 7 present
some final observations concerning the pragmatically potential opposite polarity of these
evaluative lexical means and the question of their iconicity, followed by conclusions and
suggestions for future research.
1. Theoretical Background
The semantic category of dimension or size is hypothesized as being a universal. It is a
modificational category and can be expressed:
1. lexically, primarily by adjectives, as indicated in Universal # 1196 (originally No # 1200
stated by Dixon, 1977):
IF any other semantic types are expressed by words of the word class of adjectives, THEN
members of the semantic types AGE, DIMENSION, VALUE and COLOR are likely also to be
expressed by adjectives.
2. morphologically, within the semantically wider category of evaluative derivative

morphology, without necessarily any restriction/limitation to the particular word-
categories.
While expressing dimension, size, extent, etc. lexically can reasonably be expected to
occur universally, their morphological expression, though relatively widespread, seems to be
more restricted, language or language-family/families or language-type specific, with a
number of differences in the range of evaluative morphs, their valency, productivity,
frequency of occurrence, as well as in their semantic content and communicative-pragmatic
functions.
With regard to the place of morphological derivation within linguistic disciplines, we do
not consider it part of grammar but part of onomatology within lexicology. While the
function of morphs in grammar is primarily to express syntactical relationships within the
paradigms of the existing grammatical system, the function of morphs in word-formation is
primarily to change their semantic content and within the onomasiological process their
onomatological structure, hence lexicology is a linguistic discipline in its own right. This is in
line with Horecký’s defining lexicology as a science dealing with the lexis [1979: 86] and
with Furdík’s statement that “lexicology as a linguistic discipline investigates the lexical
level of the language, including its marginal areas” [Furdík; in Ondrus, Horecký, Furdík
1980: 8]. According to Filipec and Čermák lexicology is “the theory of the lexis, carrying out
© Lexis 2011
its basic research, i.e. describing and explaining the lexical units of various types, words,
collocations and phrasemes, their relationships and partial systems” [1985: 13].
The basic function of the derivative formation of diminutives and augmentatives entails
the semes of (relatively) small or large size respectively. It is included in the modificational
type of onomasiological category, together with the change of gender (i.e. feminization), the
formation of the names of the young of animals, and of substantives expressing
collectiveness, as stated already by Dokulil [1962; in Štekauer 2006: 34]. For Slovak, Furdík
[2004: 92] also includes the formation of relational lexical units (e.g. izba ‘room’ → predizba
‘anteroom’), and negativization forming contradictory antonyms (e.g. plavec ‘swimmer’ →
neplavec ‘non-swimmer’). Similarly to Furdík with regard to Slovak, e.g. also Schneider for
English considers for means of evaluative the prefixed morphs as mini-, mikro-(Sk)/micro-
and maxi- and makro-(Sk)/macro- [2003: 17], etc.; for super- considered as augmentative
prefix cf. also e.g. Aronoff [1976: 69, as stated by Plag 2009: 103]. Though such prefixal
morphs, which from the semantic point of view could also be classified as minimizers and
intensifiers (these characteristics to some extent being also shared by diminutive and
augmentative suffixes), are undoubtedly semantically and pragmatically relevant for
quantitative evaluative modification, they are not included in the scope of the present paper.
Neither analyzed at this stage, though linguistically and cross-linguistically very interesting,
and occasionally referred to in our text, are the so-called ‘frozen diminutives’, i.e. lexical
units in which the quantitative feature became fully or partly neutralized within their
lexicalization.
We primarily focus on quantitative diminutivisation and augmentation. Nevertheless, we
also devote attention to the fact that diminutive and augmentative derivatives tend to
evaluative expressive polarization due to their potential polysemy and the systemic and
situational, i.e. pragmatic possibility of their partial quantitative desemantization, the
diminutives prevailingly, though not exclusively, expressing positive attitudes and the
augmentatives negative ones. “Because of the possibility of interpreting diminution and
augmentation in affective rather than purely objective terms (Wierbiczka [1980: 53ff.];
Szymanek [1988: 1006ff.] in Stump [1993: 1]), morphological expressions of diminution or
augmentation are not always discrete from those of endearment or contempt...” As stated e.g.
by Furdík [2004: 111], in Slovak some modificational categories serve directly for forming
expressive lexical units.
Where evaluative derivative morphology is present in the system of the language, it can
lexically and syntactically co-occur with the linguistically primary lexical expression of
dimension or size for emphasis, or for dimension-related communicative harmony, both of
which can be related to communicative situation, genre, style or register and parts of the
paper are devoted to the complexity of their functioning in Slovak.
2. Aims and Method
Slovak as an Indo-European language shares many linguistic, and in their number also
morphological features with other related languages, and to some extent probably alsowith
unrelated languages within universal linguistic contexts.
Slovak as a Slavic language has an “affluence of evaluative morphology” [Štekauer et al.,
2009: 126], mostly diminutive, with a relatively wide range of their distribution and semantic
functions, and has several augmentative suffixes as well, though of more limited distribution
and functionality.
The aims of the paper are the following:
© Lexis 2011
1. to present our own research into the suffixal means of Slovak morphological
diminutive and augmentative morphology, their typology, word-class distribution and
systemic status in word-formation, with some cross-linguistic observations;
2. to give the basic semantic features and pragmatic functions of suffixal diminutives
and augmentatives, including notes on their dynamism;
3. to identify the potential areas for future research.
In our research we use the method of synchronic description of the particular
morphological and lexical means as combined with the method of the functional analysis of
their semantic and pragmatic features within the system of the Slovak language.
3. Suffixal Means of Quantitative Evaluation in Slovak

Slovak can morphologically, i.e. by suffixation, express both diminutiveness and
augmentativeness, and does so by native, etymologically Slavic morphological means.
Encyklopédia jazykovedy [Mistrík 1993: 493] with regard to Slovak defines diminutives
as the words (mostly substantives, less frequently adjectives, adverbs and verbs) which
express smaller dimension, lower degree of something, or a certain attitude to the verbal
action, giving examples of several nominal and adjectival diminutives and one example of an
adverb and a verb. It is stated that diminutives tend to become expressive and, prevailingly,
the attitude expressed by them is positive, though can also be used negatively, and their
semantic content can be hypocoristic or non-diminutive. In the same source augmentatives are
defined as words denoting a relatively larger dimension or larger extent of some feature or
quality than is adequate or expected, and their expressivity is mostly negative, only rarely
positive [1993: 73].
In Slovak as a language of a inflectional grammatical type and a inflectional lexical type,
in word-formation is combined with the agglutinative type [cf. Furdík 2004: 112], inflectional
formation of diminutives is systemically and their textual occurrence is frequent and
widespread. The first linguist who dealt with Slovak diminutives, though only cursorily, was
Czambel [1919]. Suffixal diminutives are formed by a number of morphological means in the
category of nouns, adjectives and adverbs, with a high productivity of diminutivisation or
even graded diminutivisation, often accompanied by a wide range of expressive possibilities.
Slovak also forms augmentatives by suffixal derivation, though in comparison to the system
of diminutives they have a relatively marginal status. They occur with substantives, adjectives
and adverbs. Synchronically only several augmentative suffixes are used, and textually
augmentatives are rather infrequent.
Similarly to the situation existing in many other languages, in Slovak grammatical
inflection and word-formative derivation have for long been theoretically considered as
relatively distinct linguistic processes. Hence, in the standard Slovak linguistic sources
suffixal diminutives and augmentatives are included not in morphology [e.g. not in Oravec et
al., 1988], but in lexicology [Horecký, 1971; Ondrus et. al., 1979], or specifically in
monographs on word-formation [Furdík, 2004] where the basic information on the forms and
usage of these evaluative derivatives is presented, though only very briefly. In what follows
we will try to provide a considerably more detailed representation and analysis of the
morphological situation in the area of Slovak diminutives and augmentatives.
The largest number of derivative suffixal diminutives are formed in the word category of
substantives by means of one of a number of diminutive morphs. However, similarly to some
other languages from the Slavic family, not only substantives but several other word-
categories can be morphologically diminutivised. In addition to those given in the available
© Lexis 2011
theoretical sources, i.e. substantives, adjectives, adverbs and verbs, our data show that to a
very limited extent (and only when substantivized), diminutives can also be formed from
numerals, and exceptionally (as ad-hoc formations) from interjections and even a pronoun.
In a corpus-based contrastive research of the Czech and Slovak category of
diminutiveness Gladkova (forthcoming) distinguishes the centre, i.e. diminutive substantives,
and the periphery, i.e. diminutives from other word categories, which could be accepted also
for our data, although at least some diminutivised adjectives and adverbs, due to their high
frequency, could also qualify for the centre.
With regard to the range of the word categories which can be diminutivised, the linguistic
situation in Slovak basically complies with Universal # 2006 [originally # 2015; Bauer 1997],
as well as with its originally suggested hierarchy. However, in Slovak diminutivisation of
adverbs is more primary and much more productive than that of verbs, the diminutive
derivability of pronouns and interjections is hierarchically also reversed and together with
numerals extremely limited, with determiners not present as a word-class in Slovak.
4. Suffixal Diminutivisation
4.1. Suffixal Substantival Diminutives
Morphological suffixal diminutivisation of substantives is deep-rooted in the Slovak

morpho-lexical system, with practically unlimited productivity among concrete substantives
[cf. Furdík 2004: 90], and occurrence also among other substantives, hence diminutivisation
of substantives is an open word-formative category. It can be expressed by a number of
suffixes and is highly systemic. The distribution of nominal diminutivising suffixes is gender-
sensitive, hence different sets of -k-type diminutive suffixes (with the allomorph -č- and
historically also -c) are used for the particular genders. At the same time, basically (with only
the exception of one polysemantic suffix), diminutive derivation observes what Stump [1992]
denotes as category-preserving rules.
Horecký’s list [1971: 163-167] includes the Slovak diminutive suffixes which (with his
and some other examples) could be presented in the following Table 1:
Gender Suffix Example

Base Diminutive
Masculine - ík/-ik most ‘bridge’ mostík/môstik
žiak ‘pupil’ žiačik
-ok list ‘leaf; letter’ lístok
-ec zvon ‘bell’ zvonec
-ček/-tek syn ‘son’ synček
orech ‘nut’ orieštek
Feminine - ka loď ‘ship’ loďka
žena ‘woman’ žienka
ulica ‘street’ ulička
-ička/-ôčka izba ‘room’ izbička
fialka ‘violet’ fialôčka
-enka/-ienka/-inka šabľa ‘sword’ šablenka
sloboda ‘freedom’ slobodienka
duša ‘soul’ dušinka
Neuter -ko pero ‘feather; pen’ pierko
© Lexis 2011
-íčko/-iečko pole ‘field’ políčko

srdce ‘heart’ srdiečko
-očko/-ečko miesto ‘place’ miestočko/-ečko
víno ‘wine’ vínečko
Table 1: Basic diminutive suffixes in Slovak
In most substantival diminutives the suffix with the consonant -k- or its palatalized allophone
-č- (the palatalization dated into the 5th or 6th century), or else the combination of both is
used, with an accompanying vowel, if final, then in feminine -a and in neuter -o.
Historically, the suffixs with the element -k- i.e. -ík/-ik, -ok, -ka, -ko, etc. go back to the
ProtoIE suffix *qo, and often combine with the OCS suffix -ьcь which became palatalized, i.
e. -ček, -ička, -očko, etc. This potential co-occurrence of diminutive suffixes can be
considered for (co-)forming the historical basis for the gradability of diminutives, e. g. víno
‘wine’ - vínko - vínečko in Slovak, as well as in other Slavic languages.
As evident from the examples, typically for inflectional languages, on the morphological
boundary (under certain conditions) there often occurs modification of the final consonant of
the base and/or lengthening or diphthongization of the previous vowel.
The productivity and frequency of these diminutive suffixes, as well as their distribution
within each gender, vary. Some of them can alternatively be used with the same base, e.g.
oriešok and orieštek, others do not allow for any alternation, i.e. žiačik.
Included in the list is also the suffix -ec. Horecký [1971: 165] points out that it is
relatively rare, its diminutive meaning is present e.g. in names of things like domec (from dom
‘house’), zvonec (from zvon ‘bell’), etc., and in names of animals, e.g. baranec (from baran
‘ram’). However, as he states, in most cases derivatives with this suffix have already lost their
diminutive meaning and are either synonymous to their bases, e.g. kahan - kahanec ‘(open)
burner; pit lamp’ or denote different phenomena, e.g. klin ‘wedge’ vs. klinec ‘metallic, etc.
nail’. It can be stated that at present the Slovak suffix -ec is not productive any more, as
indicated also by Gladkova [2010] who in her research comparing Czech and Slovak
diminutives qualifies it as being historical. From the onomasiological point of view Furdík
[2004: 43] gives it as an example of a ‘redundant formant’ which can formally be segmented
but is not the bearer of onomasiological base, it “becomes desemantized and the meaning of
diminutiveness gets lost.” Consequently, he says that the status of this suffix is between a
semantically ‘full’ formant (suffix) and a semantically ‘empty’, redundant formant. The fact
that e.g the word kahanec is in Krátky slovník slovenského jazyka (KSSJ) defined as (malý)
kahan ‘(small) burner or lamp’, with malý given in brackets, is interpreted by him as
indicating only the potential validity of diminutiveness. We can add that -ec testifies to the
dynamic developments in the system of Slovak diminutive suffixes as it has lost both its
productivity and (with the exception of very few petrified lexical units) also its diminutive
semantic content. In some cases, synchronically the former bases do not exist any more, e.g.
there is none for otec ‘father’.
However, historically, -ec was a diminutive suffix and as the only one in Old Church
Slavic (OCS) is given by Večerka [1984: 2009] in the form -ьcь, e.g. oblačьcь ‘cloudlet’,
cvětьcь ‘little flower’, ptъtěnьcь ‘birdie’ [cf. Večerka 1984: 209].
The set of Slovak diminutive morphs includes the feminine suffix -ka in connection with
which Furdík [2004: 63] speaks about word-formative polysemy, i.e. the phenomenon when
in onomasiological categories one formal word-formative structure expresses several differing
but mutually related onomasiological structures, in this case the type Bases + -ka of feminized
substantives [cf. Böhmerová 2006: 32], e.g. geodet+ka (geodesist+FEM), as well as the type
© Lexis 2011
forming e.g. the diminutive map+ka ‘mapa+DIM’. We can point out that the polysemy of the
structures with the modificational suffix -ka testifies to the semantic closeness of the
modificational categories of feminization and diminutiveness, as feminine references can
conventionally tend to entail the semantic component "small size".
Such semantic relatedness occurs also in the word-formative systems of other languages,
not only in Slavic ones, cf. e.g. English usherette vs. statuette. In contrast to the situation in
Slovak, in English the usage of -ette, as well as the feminizing suffix -ess, has been
“increasingly considered as sexist” [Schneider 2003: 95]. However, it should be pointed out
that of importance in this context is the fact that such socio-linguistic attitude is rather
language-specific, conditioned also by the lexical and grammatical system of the particular
language. Consequently, such sexist sensitivities and interpretations as exist in English could
not arise e.g. in a language as Slovak where for grammatical reasons each substantive must
have the grammatical category of gender, with the due morphological markers. Hence, when
referring e.g. to a female painter, Slovak cannot use the masculine form maliar but only the
derivative maliarka ‘painter+FE’) (with the exception of generic references). Due to such
grammatical and onomatological indispensability of feminative derivatives in Slovak such
lexical units cannot become the tool or target of any feminist, antifeminist or ‘politically-
correct’ movements [Böhmerová 2004: 50-51].
Of diminutive semantic content is also the suffix -a which can either express small size, or
refer above all to the young of an animal, or have positive expressivity. The examples of its
derivatives could include N vtáča (from M vták ‘bird’), N kvieťa (from M kvet ‘flower’), N
žieňa (from F žena ‘woman’). In contrast to the situation occurring in the case of other
diminutive suffixes where the diminutive always preserves the word-category of the base, the
derivatives with -a result in Neuter substantives, regardless of the gender of their base (cf. the
genders of the bases of the examples above). We suppose that the reason can be seen in the
fact that the suffix -a contains not only the seme ‘small’ but potentially also the semes
‘offspring’, ‘the young of’, and substantives with such meaning tend to be Neuter in Slovak.
However, as indicated above, this suffix is polysemantic, and e.g. the derivative žieňa (from
žena ‘woman’) potentially entails the modificational semes ‘small, frail, pleasant, nice’. The
historically related variant of this suffix is -ä which is rather rare in contemporary Slovak and
occurs e.g. in žriebä ‘colt’. It usually denotes the young of an animal, but can also be found in
several other words, e.g. púpä (poet. ‘bud+DIM’). Historically, the suffix -a and its variant -ä
stem from OCS -ę, e.g. žrěbę ‘colt’, ovьčę ‘lamb’ [cf. Večerka 1984: 209].
As to the diminutive (or close-to-diminutive) suffixation resulting in derivatives of one
gender, in this case neuter, regardless of the gender of their base, the suffix -a is cross-
linguistically interestingly analogous to the French diminutive suffix -eau which is -by Stump
[1993: 2] denoted as “not transparent with respect to gender”, as its derivatives are “uniformly
masculine, regardless of the gender of their base”, and he gives the examples chèvre F ‘goat’
– chevreau M ‘kid’, souris F ‘mouse’ – souriceau M ‘small mouse’, F tonne ‘cask’ – M
tonneau ‘keg’. Of course, the analogy only concerns the one-gender result of derivation, as
full analogy with Slovak cannot occur because of the different number of genders in both
cases, Slovak also having Neuter.
Cross-linguistically it can also be remarked that suffixes borrowed into Slovak with
foreign diminutivised words, e.g. -ulus, -idium,-ina, which for English are by some linguists
included in the number of diminutive suffixes, are not considered for diminutive suffixes in
contemporary Slovak, the reason being that they were never productive, hence the Slovak
inventory of diminutive suffixes only entails domestic, i.e. Slavic derivative morphs.
With regard to English, some authors include in the number of diminutive suffixes also
two suffixes of Slavic origin, -chik and -sky listed by Galinsky [1952; in: Schneider 2003: 79]
as diminutively used in American English. However, it has to be pointed out that while -chik
© Lexis 2011
is the masculine form of the basic e.g. Russian diminutive suffix, having its corresponding
forms in other Slavic languages, too, cf. Slovak -čik, the supposedly diminutive suffix -sky
must have undergone what evidently seems as a semantic shift of misinterpretation, because
in Russian, Slovak, Czech, Polish, as well as other Slavic languages it is a suffix forming
adjectival derivatives which are in no way related to diminutives, cf. e.g. Slovak hora
‘mountain’ → horský ‘mountainous’, cisár ‘emperor’ → cisársky ‘imperial’, svet ‘world’ →
svetský ‘worldly’, Dunaj ‘the Danube’ → dunajský ‘Danubian’ [cf. Horecký 171: 173 – 177].
Of course, cross-linguistic semantic shifts, even if contradicting the meaning and/or
functionality, in this case lexico-grammatical, of the linguistic element in the source language,
are a legitimate way of extending the lexis.
4.1.1. Gradability of Diminutivised Substantives
In Slovak, similarly to other Slavic languages, multiple degrees of diminutiveness or

gradability of diminutives occurs. Furdík [2004: 90] refers to such process by the term
“repeated diminutivisation”. Chamonikolasová and Rambousek [2007: 38] dealing with such
multiple nominal diminutive derivatives in Czech refer to them as first-grade and second-
grade, or Grade 1 and Grade 2 diminutives, and we will use the latter terms. Such graded
diminutive derivation is expressed by the diminutive suffixes of the particular grade, or a
sequence of two different diminutive suffixes attached to the base.
Gradable substantives can primarily express small size, and can morphologically be
exemplified by the following Table 2:
Gender Base Grade 1 Grade 2

M syn ‘son’ synček synáčik
nôž ‘knife’ nožík nožíček
kvet ‘flower’ kvietok kvietoček
hlas ‘voice’ hlások hlásoček
F loď ‘boat’ loďka lodička
hora ‘mountain’ hôrka horička
hlava ‘head’ hlávka hlavička
N slovo ‘word’ slovko slovíčko
telo ‘body’ tielko telíčko
víno ‘wine’ vínko vínečko
Table 2: Gradability of substantives
In general, Grade 1 diminutives are more frequent than Grade 2 ones, both in langue and
parole, they have a higher rate of becoming desemantized (‘frozen’) than the second-degree
diminutives, and a lower rate of becoming expressive, though potentially also entailing
expressivity.
However, in Standard Slovak not all generic nominal diminutives are gradable, i.e. they
can only form Grade 1 diminutives, e.g. brat ‘brother’ – bratček, strom ‘tree’ – stromček,
ulica ‘street’ – ulička, pole ‘field’ – políčko, lavica ‘bench’ – lavička, (though, within ad-hoc
formation, colloquial, familiar or child-use or child-oriented language forms like lavicôčka
could also occur).
Some substantives (in all or some of their meanings) synchronically have Grade 1 as their
‘frozen diminutive’ basic form, e.g. fialka ‘violet’ (though fiala does exist, it is either a plant
© Lexis 2011
of a different species, or a very rarely used synonym of fialka). In some cases the substantive
does not have Grade 1, only Grade 2 as directly semantically related to the base, e.g. voda
‘water’ – vodička. Though Grade 1 formally exists in vodka, it has become a ‘frozen’, i.e. a
desemantized diminutive and, as a result of split of polysemy, became an autonomous lexeme.
The morphs used for Grade 1 and Grade 2 diminutivisation are not fully differentiated.
While -ík/-ik, -ok, *-ec, -ka, -ko are means of Grade 1 diminutivisation, the remaining suffixes
either form Grade 2, or they are used as the only suffixes which can diminutivise the
particular substantive, hence as means of Grade 1, e.g. syn ‘son’ – synček, izba ‘room’ –
izbička, pole ‘field’ – políčko, etc.
The existing constraints on the gradability of substantival diminutiveness are basically
conventionally conditioned, i.e. systemically non-predictable, but such evaluative suffixal
derivation is relatively open.
Though Czech and Slovak are closely related Slavic languages, there occur differences
between them e.g. also in the set of diminutive affixes and in the diminutive derivability of
substantives. Gladkova [forthcoming] points out that in Czech there do not exist any
analogous expressive diminutives to e.g. the Slovak bicyklík ‘bicycle+DIM’, chlebík
‘bread+DIM’ or rôčik ‘year+DIM’. We could add that in Czech from e.g. zajíc ‘hare’ there also
does not exist any Grade 1 diminutive that would be analogous to the Slovak derivative
diminutive zajko.
Gradability, with partly different suffixes, also occurs with hypocoristic references to
family members, e.g.:
(1) mama ‘mother’ – mamka/manina – maminka/mamička – familiar mamuľka –

mamulienka/mamičenka
otec ‘father’ – ocko – ocinko/ocino – familiar ocuľko/oculík
The gradability of these words, similarly to the gradability of some first names, considerably
exceeds the otherwise typical two grades, allowing for both variety and personalized usage of
intensified affectionate address. Fewer derivative exist in the case of e.g.:
(2) dedo ‘grandfather’ – dedko – deduško (both diminutivised with neuter suffixes but the
derivative is masculine)
babka ‘grandmother’ – babička.
Of cross-linguistic interest is the fact that according some authors [cf. Dressler and Merlini
Barbaressi 1994: 114] also in English (hence not only e.g. in Slavic languages, including
Slovak) there exists gradability, referred to in the above source as recursiveness, and they give
examples from Quirk et al. [1985: 1584] as fatso, momsiely, footsie, shoesies. However, in
spite of such occurrences it can be stated that in general recursive or graded diminutivisation
is much more marginal in English than in Slovak where, moreover, it is used with adjectives
and adverbs, too (see 4.2).
Similarly to a number of other languages, diminutivisation in Slovak also concerns the
special onomasionogical category of first names. Though first names derived by formally
diminutive suffixes semantically do not fall into the category of quantitative evaluation,
traditionally and in fact internationally they tend to be included in the number of
diminutivised lexical units, which is the case both of English [cf. Schneider 2003] and Slovak.
This also proves the semantic closeness and potential and/or partial overlapping of the
category of diminutives and the category of hypocoristics.
In Slovak, the variants of diminutives of first names (in the function of hypocoristics or
endearments), including also the graded variants, occur with most first names, the range of the
© Lexis 2011
diminutive affixes exceeding the substantival diminutivising affixes which are often extended
by creating idiolect ad-hoc formations or familiarisms within the systemically present
potential onomatological patterns. Typically, first names in Slovak form two grades, with
increasing intensity of expressivity and endearment.
In general we can state that in the case of some first names diminutivisation and the
sequences of graded hypocoristic diminutives can be more extensive with female names than
with masculine ones. This also applies for their pragmatic occurrence. While outside the
environment of family or friends the unmarked usage of Grade 2 of male diminutive names is
actually nearly excluded (except in ironical, jocular or otherwise communicatively marked
contexts), with feminine names it is quite frequent.
The diminutivised first names as hypocoristics, including the informal truncated variants
and their gradability in Slovak could be exemplified by the following forms:
(3) Peter/Peťo – Petrík/Peťko – Petríček/Petinko/Peťuľko/Peťulík

Jana – Janka – Janička/Janinka/Januľka/Januška – Janulienka/Januliatko
In idiolect, within a family or friendly environment, the generally used patterns of

diminutivisation of first names can be extended by ad-hoc formations.
In Slovak diminutivised first names are used with family members, friends, among
colleagues, in general in informal environments which usually allow for analogous
diminutized endearments also in other languages, though some of their pragmatic
characteristics are more specific. Most frequently, diminutivised first names are used in
addressing children, or by children addressing children or adults, and with family members or
friends, though they tend to be more frequent when addressing women than men. When
addressing above all men they can also be used ironically or with disdain (then usually Grade
2 is used, e.g. Jožinko from the sequence Jozef/Jožo – Jožko – Jožinko).
It is interesting to note that in some regions and dialects of Slovakia in certain types of
polite address non-diminutivised first names are used, but they are preceded by a
diminutivised generic substantive denoting a relative, e.g. tetka Eva ‘aunt+DIM Eve’,
ujko/ujček Jano ‘uncle+DIM John’.
In the case of some names the diminutivised form of the name (usually feminine) can (as
a variant of the basic name) be officially registered at birth, hence a baby can be registered
e.g. as Jana or Janka, though the latter is less frequent and the number of names with already
diminutivised base forms is very low.
In spite of the wide systemic occurrence of diminutivisation of first names, some do not
form diminutives, e.g. František ‘Francis’, probably because of the presence of the final
sequence -ek which is formally identical with the diminutive suffix, and even preceded by the
palatalized sibilant -š, and, consequently, only its truncated form Fero is diminutivised into
Ferko. In the case of e.g. Marek no such constraint applies and it gets diminutivised as
Mareček. Some foreign first names are usually not diminutivised, e.g. Henry, Hugo, René.
4.1.2. Notes on Lexical-Semantic Distribution and Pragmatic Functions of

Suffixal Substantival Diminutives
Though suffixal diminutivisation of substantives is a nearly unlimited word-formative

process in Slovak, and in general the formation of diminutives is productive and its frequency
high, there are also several areas where diminutives are rather infrequent, depending not only
on their semantic content, but also on the communicative intention and pragmatic context. As
their range and complex variety is beyond the scope of this paper, we shall present here only
© Lexis 2011
several observations concerning their distribution many of which are known to occur or can
be expected to occur in other languages, too, while the occurrence of others is more specific.
Of course, diminutivisation in Slovak occurs above all in any naming units where small
size needs to be expressed, i.e. concrete substantives denoting material phenomena, e.g.
domček ‘house+dim’, dvierka ‘door+DIM’, ulička ‘street+DIM’, animals, especially pets,
where regardless of the size of the animals the words can become endearments, e.g. mačička
‘kitten’, koník ‘horse+DIM’, muška ‘fly+DIM’, sloník ‘elephant+DIM’, plants, e.g. stromček
‘tree+DIM’, klinček ‘small metallic, etc. nail; carnation’, in the latter case (also) as desemantized
‘frozen’ diminutive, and in many other thematic areas.
Although ‘frozen’, i.e. lexicalized, and as to expressing small size desemantized
derivatives with diminutive suffixes, do not constitute the target of our research, several notes
will be devoted to them. Among diminutivised and ‘frozen’ suffixal derivatives in Slovak
there is a variety of lexical units, some of them thematically classifiable, e.g. certain names of
flowers and plants, e.g. the above fialka ‘violet’, klinček ‘carnation’, several anatomical
references, e.g. malíček ‘index finger’ or jabĺčko ‘Adam’s apple; kneecap’, etc. The number
of morphologically diminutivised anatomical naming units also includes the Slovak
equivalent of the term for ‘pupil (of the eye)’ which in Universal # 1176 (originally # 1180) is
on the basis of 118 languages of worldwide distribution presented as “most likely to be
derived from substantives denoting a small human like a baby, or a child, or a diminutive
humanlike object like a doll.” In compliance with this universal the Slovak equivalent can be
diminutive, i.e. zrenička, but does not have to be a diminutive, cf. zrenica, though in non-
terminological usage the diminutive form prevails. However, what is quite different is the
motivation. In Slovak the naming unit is not motivated by a small human or humanlike object,
but by the verbal base zrieť ‘to see’ (as a verb it mostly occurs with prefixes: pozrieť ‘to look’,
zazrieť ‘to notice’, prezrieť ‘to check’, etc.), similarly to the motivation of the Czech non-
diminutivised zřítelnice or zornice, or diminutivised zornička. In contrast to Slovak, Czech
also has the morphologically diminutive panenka (literally ‘little doll’) and the Latinate
pupila, both fully testifying to the statement made in the above universal. However, on the
whole it is generally stated that Slovak has more ‘frozen’ diminutives than Czech, though
such claim will have to be proved or disproved by further researchof the data.
An area where diminutivised substantives tend to occur in Slovak is in the jargon of drug
abusers, where they express their positive attitude to the denoted phenomena, or even
endearment, e.g. fľaštička ‘bottle’, pohárik ‘glass’, vínko/vínečko ‘wine’, maryška
‘marihuana’, though with the exception of the latter word the above diminutives are also part
of the general vocabulary as informal, jocular or even polite offer or request references (see
later).
Not only concrete but also abstract substantives can be diminutivised, though their
number is much lower, e.g. sníček ‘dream’, myšlienočka ‘thought’, nápadík ‘idea’, but these
are always expressively marked [cf. Horecký in Ondrus et al. 1979: 116], mostly positively,
or, on the contrary, sometimes marked as potentially jocular, ironical or expressing disdain.
However, in some registers and, above all, in terminological areas suffixal diminutives do not
occur, e.g. in legal terminology [cf. Bázlik & Ambrus [2008], which also applies for Slovak.
As to their distribution in communication in Slovak, to some extent similarly to other
languages, the special metaphorical hypocoristics formed as diminutives abound in child or
child-oriented language, in the speech of women or to women, and in affectionate language in
general. Such Slovak endearments used as affectionate address among family members,
friends or lovers include N zlatko ‘gold+DIM’, N srdiečko ‘heart+ DIM’, M chrobáčik ‘beetle+
DIM’, F dušinka/dušička ‘soul+ DIM’, the preceding ones used for both males and females,
regardless of their gender, and, e.g. M holúbok/F holubička ‘dove+ DIM’ distributed according
to their gender. However, there also exist many others, often created as part of idiolect.
© Lexis 2011
An area that to our knowledge does not get mentioned in Slovak linguistic sources and
research at all is the usage of generic diminutives as means of the politeness maxim. E. g. in
restaurants and services in general there is a tendency to diminutivise some of the generic
substantives referring to what is offered or provided. Hence, while a waiter´s question Dáte si
kávu? ‘Would you like coffee?’ or Prinesiem vám kávu? ‘Shall I bring you coffee?’ is polite,
but expressively neutral, Dáte si/Prinesiem vám kávičku? or even only Kávičku?
‘coffee+DIM’, in the Accusative Singular, as required by the verb, though the verb is elided)
are not only less formal but even more kind, showing in a more personal way the willingness
to offer the service. Such diminutives are often used as references to drinks, e.g. also čajíček,
pivko, vínko, to food, e.g. polievočku, gulášik, etc. They are also frequent in comunication in
family, among friends, to guests, and, above all to children, e.g. Chceš mliečko? ‘Would you
like milk?’, or kakauko ‘cocoa’, mäsko ‘meat’, koláčik ‘cake’, etc. Similarly, also e.g. in a
hospital the nurse could ask: Prinesiem Vám vodičku? ‘Shall I bring you water?’, the
diminutive showing both willingness and compassion. Subsequently, the diminutive tends to
be used also in the answer.
Diminutives as expressions of politeness also occur in references to parts of the body, e.g.
a hairdresser would diminutivise hlava ‘head’ into hlavička when asking her customer:
Zohnite hlavičku! ‘Would you bend your head?’, or e.g. to items offered or considered for
purchasing, e.g. an assistant in a clothes store could ask: Vyskúšate si tento kabátik? ‘Would
you like to try this coat on?’, with diminutivised kabátik ‘coat+DIM’. In Slovak, suffixal
diminutivisation tends to be used also in compliments or appreciative statements, usually to
women or children. Hence, e.g. in reference to klobúk ‘hat’ the common compliment would
be: Máte krásny klobúčik! ‘What a lovely hat you´ve got!’, with the diminutivised klobúčik.
Suffixal diminutives also occur when patience is politely asked for explicitly, e.g. Počkajte
chvíľku/chvíľočku! ‘Would you wait for a while!’, or implied within a statement O
minútku/minútočku prídem ‘I will be back in a minute’. However, the latter is not a
phenomenon with wide lexical diffusion as also for semantic reasons not all time-references
get derivatively diminutivised in such communicative situations; while diminutivised are
hodinka ‘hour+DIM’, dníček ‘day+DIM’, rôčik ‘year’, no diminutivisation occurs e.g. in the
case of *mesiačik, probably also because of its being homonymous to the expressive
diminutivised word meaning moon.
As pointed out by a number of authors [cf. in Schneider 2003: 164], diminutivisation in
requests, offers, suggestions, asking for patience and in various communicative strategies
exists also in other languages. Their pragmatic typology in English is in detail analyzed by
Schneider [2003: 164-235]. However, for these communicative functions many languages,
including English, use only or prevailingly lexical analytical diminutivisation, not suffixal as
Slovak does.
When returning to the above communicative situation in services, in Slovak
diminutivisation of addressing the attendants or the customers is not used. Actually, when e.g.
a speaker of Russian visiting Slovakia addresses the attendant девушка ‘girl+ DIM’, which in
Russian is appropriate (while the parallelly existing Russian девoчка is a diminutive per se
and is not used in such situations), to the Slovak attendant (who does not happen to know
Russian well enough, but due to partial mutual comprehensibility understands the word itself)
the address sounds very inappropriate or even rude. Similarly, also some of the Roma, who
like in many other European countries constitute an ethnic minority in Slovakia, tend to
address strangers as panička ‘Missis+ DIM’, pánko ‘Mister+ DIM’, where to Slovaks the
diminutivisation of these lexical units sounds inappropriate, imposing or ironical. However,
this is interference from the Romani language where such diminutivisation is appropriate and
expresses polite address and request, the corresponding diminutive forms in Romani being
© Lexis 2011
rajoro (raj ‘Mister+ DIM’) and raňori (raňi ‘Missis+ DIM’). This testifies to a different lexical
and pragmatic distribution of hypocoristic diminutivisation in both languages.
In Slovak suffixally diminutivised generic address is appropriate e.g. in the cases of
address used by children to adults, i.e. ujko (literally ‘uncle+DIM’) or tetuška (literally
‘aunt+DIM’) which (together with the non-diminutivised teta) in this function became
common and standard. Similarly, when addressing a child the name of which we do not know,
in Slovak we use diminutive forms, i.e. dievčatko ‘girl+DIM’ and chlapček ‘boy+DIM).
Similarly, slečinka (slečna ‘Miss+DIM’) is also used, though getting slightly dated, and is
typically used by older people. It can be used jocularly or flatteringly as well, including
addressing little girls, but also ironically, expressing critical attitude or disdain.
Similarly to many other languages, potentially high in Slovak is the occurrence of
diminutives in literature for children, in poetry and in lyrical prose, though in contrast to some
other languages the diminutives are suffixal derivatives. Though typically much higher than in
non-Slavic languages, their number and frequency of usage depends on the literary or poetical
crede of the author, as well as on the literary period, etc. In the poetry of Slovak romanticists,
e.g. by Janko Kráľ (1822-1876), diminutives are very frequent, while e.g. in the poems
written by contemporary writers they are not so numerous. Still, e.g. in the humanistic poetry
whose author is the Slovak poet Milan Rúfus (1928-2009), several times nominated for the
Nobel Prize, we can find on average at least one diminutive per poem, though his poetry is
certainly not oversentimental. Regardless of the personal preferences, genre, theme, etc.,
diminutives in Slovak are extensively used and perceived as potential expressive and – in
appropriate contexts – favoured tools of the belles lettres.
With regard to the range of pragmatic functions of diminutives, as pointed out by
Rončáková [2009: 126], in Slovak diminutivisation can also be used as one of the typical
manifestations of pathetization of the text. She indicates that diminutives in this function
occur above all in religious songs and folk variants of prayers, e.g. dietky Božie ‘Lord’s
children+DIM’.
Of course, too many diminutives in Slovak utterances can sound inappropriate and
oversentimentalizing. Moreover, at present mainly among young people, as part of post-
positive communicative attitudes, there can be perceived a tendency at reducing their number
in utterances and texts (in all their word-class forms). Hence, among young people (with the
possible exception of very affectionate relationships), e.g. the preferred address to friends is
often not a diminutive of the first name but its truncated form or a nickname. To some extent
the above attitude has also led e.g. to the revaluation of mamka ‘mother+ DIM’ which several
decades ago was perceived primarily as a diminutive, but at present it is mostly used as a
relatively neutral, informal or even slightly impolite and usually only indirect reference to
mother, though in idiolects or in dialectal usage it continues to function as an endearment. It
has to be noted that the partly reserved attitude of some young speakers of Slovak to
diminutives is not a result of some cross-linguistic influence, but a certain (possibly cross-
cultural) change of attitude in communication which could be characterized as aiming at
desentimentalization. Though such changing attitudes have their impact on the linguistic
behaviour, in general this does not diminish the high frequency and functionality of
diminutives in other spheres of usage.
Diminutivised words (in all word-categories) can pragmatically also be used as negative
evaluation, expressing that some phenomenon, feature, circumstance, etc. does not come up to
the expected quantity, quality, etc., hence is intended and/or perceived as expressing
insufficiency, inadequacy, inappropriateness, and consequently can even become pejorative
within irony, disdain, ridicule and similar negative attitudes. Gladkova [forthcoming] points
out that negative evaluation occurs exclusively only with masculine diminutives, and gives
the example úradníček ‘úradník+ DIM’ with the meaning ‘unqualified, inefficient, etc. office
© Lexis 2011
worker’. In addition, as a result of the presence of the particular prosodic features, actually
any (autosemantic) words, hence also the diminutivised ones, can potentially express negative
attitudes, and due to the possibility of expressing e.g. inadequacy, derivative diminutives offer
theselves as candidates for this semantic-pragmatic shift. In English an analogous shift of
attitudinal polarity could also be found in the case of derivatives with e.g. the suffix -ette or -
ling.
4.2. Suffixal Adjectival and Adverbial Diminutives
Slovak adjectival and adverbial diminutives share a number of morphological features,

hence are presented here jointly.
Diminutive adjectives and adverbs are mostly formed with the suffixes represented in the
following Table 3 together with some examples, in relevant cases also with Grade 2
diminutive formations:
Adjective Diminutive Adverb Diminutive

Suffix & Suffix &
Derivative Derivative
Base Grade 1 Grade 2 Base Grade 1 Grade 2
-ičký/-inký -ilinký -ičko/-inko -ilinko
malý ‘small’ maličký/-inký malilinký málo máličko/ málilinko
-inko
pomalý ‘slow’ pomaličký pomalilinký pomaly pomaličky/ pomalilinko
/-inký -linky
-učký/-unký -ulinký -učko/-unko -ulinko
bledý ‘pale’ bledučký -bledulinký bledo bledučko bledulinko
dobrý ‘good’ dobručký/ dobrulinký dobre dobručko dobrulinko
-unký
milý ‘kind’ milučký milulinký milo milučko milulinko
mladý ‘young’ mladučký mladulinký mlado mladučko mladulinko
sladký ‘sweet’ sladučký sladulinký sladko sladučko sladulinko
starý ‘old’ staručký starulinký staro staručko starulinko
voňavý voňavučký --- voňavo voňavučko ---
‘smelling nicely’
Table 3: Graded Diminutive Adjectives and Adverbs
The majority of masculine adjectives are diminutivised with the suffixes -učký/-unký in Grade
1 (or primary derivation) and -ulinký in Grade 2 (or secondary derivation), and the majority of
adverbs are diminutivised with -učko/-unko in Grade 1 and -ulinko in Grade 2. Hence the
morph -li- participates in forming Grade 2, but within repetition also other Grades, e.g. from
malý ‘small’ in expressive utterances we can even find malilililinký, above all in familiar and
colloquial language, in the speech of and to children, in idiolect and in ad-hoc formations,
sometimes even with less frequent variant morphs, cf. malilinkatý (with positive
connotations).
In Slovak due to concord adjectives in their basic or any other forms adopt the
grammatical categories of the head substantive, though they follow their own adjectival
declension paradigms. The above Table 4 gives their basic, i.e. nominative singular masculine
© Lexis 2011
form, while the corresponding feminine forms end in -á, i.e. malá – maličká – malilinká and
neuter forms in -é, i.e. malé – maličké/malinké – malilinké.
Derivative diminutive adjectives and adverbs are formed above all from qualitative
adjectives (pekný ‘nice’ – peknučký) and adverbs (pekne ‘nicely’ – peknučko) and several
other semantic types expressing subjective, e.g. quantitative evaluation (malý ‘small’ –
maličký) or qualitative evaluation (milý ‘kind’ – milučký). As far as we know, there has not
not been carried out any research into the semantic typology of Slovak adjectives and adverbs
allowing for evaluative gradeability, but from our data it seems that adjectives and adverbs
with a semantically primarily positive and consequently thus also usable and perceivable
content prevail (cf. the above list). Still, diminutivisation can also occur with adjectives with
negative semantic content used with compassion or (usually only) mild irony, e.g.
(4) hlúpy ‘silly’ – hlúpučký

tučný ‘fat’ – tučnučký
However, just like in the case of other lexical units, any suffixally diminutivised adjective or
adverb can, in certain pragmatic contexts, be also used ironically or can express disdain or
negative attitude.
In the case of some adjectives and the analogous adverbs, due to so-far not specified
semantic reasons, their diminutivising derivability is rather improbable, though not
necessarily completely impossible, e.g.:
(5) bohatý ‘rich’ – ?bohatučký

rýchly quick’ – ?rýchlučký
silný ‘strong’ – ?silnučký
unavený ‘tired’ – ?unavenučký
usilovný ‘dilligent’ – ?usilovnučký
Their ad-hoc communicative occurrence would tend to be ironical or, in the case of the
semantic relevance of the base (e.g. ?unavenučký) they could occur in child or child-related
speech.
As evident from Table 3 above, some diminutivised adjectives and adverbs do not have
any Grade 2 derivative, but to our knowledge the constraints on their formation have not yet
been treated in available Slovak linguistic sources.
4.2.1. Collocability of Suffixally Diminutivised Evaluative Substantives with

Diminutivised Adjectives
When small size is expressed in Slovak by a semantically inherently diminutive, i.e.

morphologically non-diminutivised adjective followed by a non-diminutivised substantive,
e.g. malý dom ‘small house’, the collocation does not carry any expressivity. Grade 1
diminutivised adjective collocated with non-diminutivised substantive, e g. maličký dom, also
tends to be neutral, basically entailing the intensifying seme, hence meaning ‘very or
considerably small house’, but can potentially/situationally acquire positive expressivity,
though a negative one is communicatively not excluded either. The other collocations given
sub c) below entail the expressivity of primarily positive evaluation, i.e.:.
(6) a) Non-expressive: malý dom

b) Usually non-expressive: maličký dom
c) Expressive: malý domček - maličký domček - malilinký domček
© Lexis 2011
In the latter two expressions there occurs the concord or harmony of morphological derivative
diminutivisation of the adjective and the substantive, which is not obligatory, though
communicatively it is highly probable. At the same time, this is multiple diminutivisation,
suffixally present both in the adjective and the substantive, with the intensification of small
size and typically also with increased expressivity. In e.g. fairy-tales even the co-occurrence
of a Grade 2 adjective with a Grade 2 substantive could be found, e.g. malilinký domčúrik.
4.3. Diminutivised Verbs
In Slovak also verbs can be diminutivised. They are formed by the morph -k, with its
rarely occurring variant -ink-, added to the base before the grammatical morph, the word-
formative process sometimes being accompanied by the modification of the base. In general
the thus diminutivised verbs carry the meaning of lower intensity of the action or process. We
suggest their following semantic-pragmatic classification depending on their meaning and/or
usage:
(7) 1. low intensity per se:

hrabať ‘rake’ → hrabkať, škrabať ‘scratch’ → škrabkať
2. low intensity and repetitiveness:
skákať ‘jump’ → skackať, klopať ‘knock’ → klopkať, zobať ‘peck’ → zobkať
3. leisureliness or comfortableness of the action, process, or state and/or usage in child
or child-oriented language:
ležať ‘llie’ → ležkať, hrať sa ‘play’ → hrajkať sa, spať ‘sleep’ → spinkať
4. usage in child or child-oriented language
bežať ‘run’ → bežkať, plakať ‘cry/weep’ → plačkať
5. usage in child or child-oriented language with exclusively child or child-oriented
verbal bases:
papať ‘eat’ → papkať, hajať ‘sleep’ → hajkať, búvať ‘sleep’ → buvinkať, hačať (si)
‘sit (down)’ → hačkať (si)
6. usage in child or child-oriented language, but also in affectionate communication
among adults or in polite requests:
ľahnúť si ‘lie down’ → ľažkať si, sadnúť si ‘sit down’ → sadkať si
The classes suggested do not have distinct boundaries and are marked by possible overlaps,
e.g. Class 1 potentially also entails the seme "repetitiveness", i e. a category of verbal action
which is specific for Class 2.
Some verbs, though containing the morph -k- and formally diminutive, do not
synchronically have any lexically autonomous basis, e.g. čačkať ‘to overdecorate’, drankať
‘to ask for something in an insisting way’, brnkať ‘to play on a string instrument’, šepkať ‘to
whisper’, etc.
Though verbs containing the diminutive morph can also occur as stylistically unmarked
lexical units, they are mostly used in expressive function or in the above outlined
communicative registers. Specific is the case of polite request. In Slovak a host/hostess can
suggest to the guest: Sadkajte si! ‘Would you like to sit down?/Sit down, please’, where the
verb sadnúť si ‘to sit down’ gets derivatively diminutivised, or a nurse can politely and
caringly ask the patient: Ľažkajte si! ‘Would you lie down, please?’, diminutivising the verb
ľahnúť si ‘to lie down’.
© Lexis 2011
Though above all in child and child-oriented language suffixal diminutivised verbs are
very frequent, their overall systemic and communicative status is relatively low. Only a
relatively small number of verbs has been lexicalized as diminutivised.
Also diminutivised verbs are an open lexical set, readily extended within ad-hoc
formations and/or idiolect usage. Thus, in family of friendly communication e.g. robkať (from
robiť ‘to do+ DIM’) can be used, e.g. Čo robkáte? ‘What are you/have you been doing’, which
sounds affectionate, can be slightly jocular, though can also be perceived as slightly dated or
effeminate. However, the number of codified diminutivised verbs and theproductivity of their
rise within ad-hoc formations is much lower than the diminutivisation of substantives,
adjectives and adverbs.
4.4. Suffixal Diminutives in Other Word Categories
Very few suffixal diminutive derivatives can be found outside the word categories of
substantives, adjectives, adverbs and verbs.
In the category of pronouns we have only found the familiar diminutive forms mojko and
mojček derived from the possessive pronoun môj ‘my, mine’ within its nominalization, hence
this diminutivisation is class-changing. These de-pronominal diminutives can be used as
affectionate address to a child or a very close person. Similarly, the pronoun môj can also give
rise to the diminutive derivative verb mojkať sa ‘to cuddle’, with the same communicative
distribution (with no non-diminutive verbal base).
Though numerals themseves cannot be diminutivized in Slovak, substantivized numerals
can marginally, in colloquial speech, become diminutivized. E.g. with regard to school results
diminutives like dvoječka ‘grade 2+DIM’ occur, or some numeric references, above all
amounts of money can be diminutivized, e.g. stovečka ‘one hundred+DIM. However, this
indirect diminutivisation of former diminutives has a small lexical diffusion, textual
frequency and is substandard.
In the category of interjections we have identified only several diminutives and they can
be classified as follows:
(8) 1) volitional: a) informal greetings: Ahojko! Ahojček! Čauko! ‘Hi!/Bye!’, Dobré

ránko! ‘Good morning!’
b) imperative: Tíško! ‘Silence, please!, Hush!’
2) vocative from a dated vocative form: Pánečku! ‘Gee!; literally ‘Lordie!’
However, it has to be noted that some of these interjections are actually substantival
diminutives (ránko, pánečku), while čauko and tíško are grammatically/formally identifiable
with neuter substantives the most common word-formative pattern of which has is
systemically marked by the suffix -o. With the possible exception of Tíško! all of the above
are colloquial diminutives.
Not many more cases of the occurrence of diminutivising derivation exist in these word-
categories, hence diminutivisation in them is systemically and communicatively extremely
marginal, though theoretically certainly of interest, also with regard to cross-linguistic
comparisons of the possibilities of the existence of diminutivisation in other languages.
© Lexis 2011
5. Suffixal Augmentatives
In Slovak suffixal augmentatives can be formed from substantives, adjectives and
adverbs, though the productivity of their formation is relatively limited. In contrast to
diminutives, they are always expressive.
5.1. Suffixal Substantival Augmentatives
In the category of substantives suffixal augmentatives are formed by only one dominant
suffix with two allomorphs, i.e. -isko/-sko. Historically, there also existed, and to some extent
in dialects has been preserved, derivation by -ina, e.g. chlapina ‘man+AUG’ for masculine
substantives [cf. e.g. Furdík 2004: 90], and -izňa, e.g. babizňa ‘woman+ AUG’ for feminines
[cf. Nábělková 2010].
Semantically, augmentatives express excessiveness and at the same time usually negative
or derogatory evaluation, though, more rarely, some augmentatives in certain contexts can
also express appreciative evaluation. The tendency at negative expressivity is caused by the
fact that excessive quantity, size or extent tends to be presented and/or perceived as
inapropriate, undesired.
Furdík [2004: 90] points out that the (suffixal) formation of augmentatives is limited, but
no further specification is given. With regard to comparing the presence of expressivity in
diminutives and augmentatives Furdík gives, on the one hand, the example of the diminutive
psíček ‘dog+DIM’ which can be used as a reference to a small dog, or expressively as a dog of
any size, and, on the other hand, the augmentative psisko ‘dog+ AUG’ which refers to a
barking, wretched or in some other way negatively denoted dog of any size. In other words,
exclusively augmentative usage of derivative augmentatives does not occur.
As stated by Horecký [1971: 168], augmentative derivatives formed from the bases of all
the three genders result nearly exclusively in neuter, hence to this effect augmentative
substantival derivation in Slovak is usually class-changing, only preserving the neuter, i.e.:
(9) from Masculine: chlapisko ‘man+ AUG’, vojačisko ‘soldier+ AUG’, obrisko ‘giant+
AUG’, stromisko ‘tree+ AUG’, mečisko ‘sword+ AUG’;
from Feminine: rybisko ‘fish+ AUG’, dlanisko ‘palm of the hand+ AUG’, kostisko
‘bone+ AUG’;
from Neuter: telisko ‘body+ AUG’, námestisko ‘square of a city, etc.+ AUG’,
dievč(at)isko ‘girl+ AUG’.
However, when the base is masculine, in Slovak in augmentative derivatives there also occurs
oscillation between neuter and masculine, e.g. from M dub → M/N dubisko ‘oak+ AUG’, from
M silák → M/N siláčisko ‘strong man+ AUG’. When the the base is feminine, there is
oscillation between neuter and feminine, e.g. from F baba → F/N babisko ‘coll., slightly vulg.
woman+ AUG’. But, as pointed out by Nábělková [2010], in the case of animate masculine
base the oscillation between genders fully concerns only the singular, in the nominative plural
the neuter form tends to apply, i.e. chlapiská, siláčiská (not the forms with the corresponding
masculine +HUM suffix -ovia). Nevertheless, this paradigmatic situation is neither
transparent nor stable, and probably also depends on regional usage. In an older research
Jánošík [1947/48; in Nábělková] found that the neuter prevails in Central Slovak dialects, the
natural gender in the rest of Slovakia, the latter with a tendency to influence also Central
Slovak. Also (but not only) in this connection Nábělková [2010] observes a certain non-
© Lexis 2011
stability of the current norm, as well as a lack of any detailed analysis of this area of the
Slovak lexis.
It is noteworthy that from some declension patterns no suffixal augmentatives are formed.
Horecký [1971: 168] in this context points out sluha ‘servant’ and ulica ‘street’, the
constraints being caused by the grammatical paradigmatic type.
As the majority of augmentatives is used in spoken language, their research is hampered
by the lack of written data, and hence also their lower occurrence in the Slovak National
Corpus. Moreover, many of those augmentatives which are included into it are from older
literary texts or texts for children, and thus are either dated or communicatively specific.
5.2. Communicative-Pragmatic Functions of Suffixal Substantival Augmentatives
Slovak augmentative substantives are prevailingly used as expressive means of negative

evaluation, though, as documented in the previous section, they can also be used positively,
and in the case of several augmentatives the positive usage prevails. These possibilities could
be presented as follows:
Negative evaluation expresses:
- inappropriate, excessive or unpleasant size, looks, etc.: domisko ‘house+AUG’,

klobúčisko ‘hat+AUG’;
- higher level of negative qualities, e.g. vulgar, wretched, vicious, rough, evil, etc.:
čertisko ‘devil+AUG’, lotrisko ‘coundrel+AUG’;
- higher level of negative qualities perceived as threatening, cruel, dangerous, etc.:
medvedisko ‘bear+AUG’, vetrisko ‘wind+AUG’.
Positive evaluation:
- appreciation, often accompanied by appreciative adjectives: (poriadny) chlapisko ‘a

really big/strong man’, (veľký) dobráčisko ‘a really good/kind man’;
- compassion: chudáčisko ‘poor thing’.
Any other conditions of the lexical-semantic and collocation-based distribution of

appreciative usage of suffixal augmentatives could only be specified by further research.
5.3. Slovak Suffixal Augmentative Adjectives and Adverbs
They are mostly formed only from adjectives and adverbs expressing large size, large
extent or some extremely bad feature or circumstance. With both adjectives and adverbs the
augmentative suffix is mostly -ánsky, which is a case of cross-categorial (‘cross-class’)
homonymy of the derivative morph; for adjectives marginally also the suffix -izný and for
adverbs rarely -izne is used.
Some examples of Slovak augmentative adjectives and adverbs are given in the following
Table 4:
© Lexis 2011
Base Form Augmentative Adjective Augmentative Adverb
veľký ‘large’ velikánsky/veličizný velikánsky/veličizne

obrovský ‘huge’ obrovitánsky obrovitánsky
vysoký ‘high, tall’ vysokánsky/vysočizný vysokánsky/vysočizne
široký ‘wide’ širokánsky/širočizný širokánsky/širočizne
hlboký ‘deep’ hlbokánsky/hlbočizný hlbokánsky/hlbočizne
hrozný ‘horrible’ hrozitánsky hrozitánsky
ukrutný ‘cruel’ ukrutánsky ukrutánsky
Table 4: Augmentative adjectives and adverbs
Though ad-hoc formations of augmentatives do arise, in Standard Slovak the lexical units
given in Table 4 represent nearly all the frequent augmentative adjectives and adverbs.
As stated above, augmentative adjectives or adverbs, in addition to expressing
excessiveness, are all marked as being mostly negative, though pragmatically can also
function as expressing appreciation, e.g.:
(10) velikánsky chlap ‘impressively/admirably, etc., large man’

hlbokánsky hlas ‘incredibly/wonderfully, etc., deep voice’.
In these cases they express higher than average size, quality or feature which is perceived as
worthy of admiration.
5.4. Collocability of Suffixal Augmentative Adjectives and Substantives
When collocating suffixal augmentative adjectives with substantives, the following

systemic possibilities exist:
(11) velikánsky dom ‘huge house’

velikánsky domisko ‘huge house+AUG’
The potential suffixal augmentative derivability is much higher than the number of lexicalized
augmentatives. This also results in the fact that in the cases when the substantive is not
codified or common as an augmentative, augmentativeness tends to be expressed by the
adjective and not by the substantive, which also excludes any augmentative concord, e.g.
instead of hríbisko there occurs velikánsky hríb ‘huge+ AUG mushroom’.
5.5. Communicative-Pragmatic Functions of Suffixal Augmentative Adjectives and

Adverbs
With regard to communicative distribution, as the primary spheres of the usage of suffixal
augmentative adjectives and adverbs Nábělková [2010] delimits informal spoken utterances,
fiction and subjectively marked journalistic genres. In this context she quotes Smiešková’s
[1956: 81] statement that “in Standard Slovak augmentative substantives and adjectives are
much more rare than in the rural and spoken language... They are frequent mostly in folk
literature...” In addition, Nábělková points out their recent occurrence in various texts in
internet conversation and discussions, which we could link with exaggeration, i.e. hyperboly
within the communicative strategy of dramatizing the utterances. As examples we could give:
© Lexis 2011
Bol to obrovitánsky úspech. ‘It was a huge success’, or Mali tam hrozitánsky horúco. ‘It was
horribly hot there’.
6. Notes on the (Potential) Opposite Polarity of Diminutives and

Augmentatives
Diminutives and augmentatives (both lexical, i.e. analytically expressed and suffixal, i.e.
derivational) are semantically primarily opposite with regard to expressing quantification,
extent, feature, etc. However, the semantic and pragmatic-communicative intention and effect
can vary with the particular words or their usage, entailing quantitative and/or qualitative
modification, and within qualitative modification various positive or negative (ameliorative or
pejorative) meanings can be communicatively applied or foregrounded. The traditional
premise is that what is small tends to be positively marked or perceived and, on the contrary,
large phenomena tend to be negatively marked or perceived. Though this applies for the
majority of the items and usages of both types of evaluative derivatives, as stated e.g. by
Nábělková [2010], in concrete utterances both axes cross in various ways, which allows also
for negative usage/meaning of diminutives and for positive usage/meaning of augmentatives.
The semantic shift of diminution and augmentation from quantitative evaluation to
qualitative evaluation, as well as their shift to opposite polarity, are allowed by the
“possibility of interpreting diminution and augmentation in affective rather than purely
objective terms [Wierbzicka 1980: 55ff., Szymanek 1988: 106ff.; in Stump 1992: 1].”
Diminutives and augmentatives as modificational derivatives form a specific pragmatically
‘disposed’ part of the wordstock “allowing to express personal attitudes, perception, feelings,
emotions and evaluation by word-formative modification of the lexical units” [Nábělková
2010; cf. Dolník 1999]. As stated by Nábělková, “the positive and negative expressive
features, by which modificational” (here we would prefer the term ‘evaluative’) “derivatives
differ from the emotionally neutral naming units, i.e. tenderness, favour, liking,” (added could
also be compassion), “kindness, pleasantness, purposefulness, admiration vs. aversion, fear,
animosity, disparagement, antipathy, contempt, ironization, etc., tend to vary according to the
particular needs of expression, providing to the language users – however, within the
implicitness of the actual content of expressivity – a communicatively important possibility of
subjective expression.”
Hence, suffixal diminutives and augmentatives are lexical units with potentially very high
polysemy and varied pragmatic possibilities the objective research of which will require
intensive analysis not only of their system but also usage.
7. Iconicity
With regard to diminutives and augmentatives, Universal # 1926 (originally # 1932) in
Plank and Filimonova´s The Universal´s Archives postulates the presence of iconicity, stating:
There is an apparently universal iconic tendency in diminutives and augmentatives: diminutives

tend to contain high front vowels, whereas augmentatives tend to contain high back vowels.
Though detailed analysis of iconicity was not aimed in this paper, as evident from the
evaluative suffixal derivative morphs presented in the above sections, front as well as back
vowels (high and low) occur in the set of both diminutive and augmentative derivative
morphs used within the particular word-classes in Slovak, and though the consonant in some
© Lexis 2011
of the diminutive suffixes is palatalized (i.e. -č-), non-palatalized consonants can occur both
in diminutive and augmentative evaluative morphs, though in augmentative morphs only non-
palatalized consonants occur. The above testifies to the finding of Štekauer et al. [2009: 127],
based on the research of data from 25 languages, that the “postulate of phonetic iconicity in
the domain has not been confirmed for European languages as a whole,” and, as investigated
by Körtvéyessy, the “phonetic iconicity has not been confirmed for ... African languages”
[2010: ]. In their research Gregová and Panocová came to the conclusion that “the analysis of
diminutive and augmentative affixes from 11 Slavonic languages failed to provide evidence
for the Universal 1926” [2009: 49]. Our data support the above.
Conclusion
The complex system of suffixal diminutivisation in Slovak, as characteristic of a
inflectional (inflectional synthetic) language, its presence in a number of word-classes, as well
as its high and nearly unlimited productivity in most of them can, in our opinion, be primarily
ascribed to the fact that, similarly to the situation in other Slavic languages, all its means are
native. This is also one of the reasons why it has a strong systemic status in Slovak evaluative
morphology. Though there are a number of variant suffixes, their core is formed by the morph
-k- (and its palatalized variant -č-), which makes the morphologial and onomatological
component rather coherent and transparent, and this is deemed to contribute to the strong
systemic presence of suffixal diminutivisation in Slovak. In addition to high productivity,
which in diminutivizsation in most word-classes includes also gradability, suffixal
diminutives have high textual occurrence, above all in the everyday language, in several
registers and thematic areas, as well as a wide range of pragmatic functions. Some of them are
analogous to those in other languages, but several are rather specific and not shared with
diminutives or suffixal diminutives in other languages in general, and have been at least partly
highlighted in the sections of this paper.
Although suffixal augmentative morphs also exist and function in Slovak, their word-class
distribution, systemic status and range of pragmatic functions is much weaker, most probably
similarly to the situation in many other languages (in the case that aumentatives exist in them
at all).
Though the system of evaluative quantitative morphology in Slovak is relatively stable, in
line with the linguistically generally applying principle of dynamic stability it demonstrates
several dynamic changes even within its most recent developments, as indicated by the
differences currently occurring in the means, attitudes and usage of diminutives and
augmentatives.
Expressing quantitativeness, i.e. size, quantity and extent, etc. is universal in languages,
however, expressing them suffixally is more language-specific. In this respect our research
has in some ways also testified to Bauer´s statement that “there are still plenty of places to
look for universals”, and that “in those places where we have already looked, there are plenty
of unconsidered possibilities” [2009: Košice Conference presentation]. We have attempted to
look at some of them within the evaluative morphology of one of the thousands of the
languages of the world – our native Slovak, but in spite of that, as we tend to hope, some of
the findings concerning Slovak can perhaps have their counterparts in universal contexts.
© Lexis 2011
Future Research
The work on this paper on the theme of diminutives and augmentatives in Slovak has led
us to identifying several of the possible tasks for future research:
- semantic and word-formative constraints on suffixal formation of diminutives and

augmentatives;
- predictability of and constraints on gradability;
- systemic communicative range and pragmatic functions of diminutives and augmentatives;
- ‘frozen diminutives’, their inventory and analysis of their semantic content;
- contrastive bi-lingual research of diminutives (and augmentatives);
- comparative research of diminutives (and augmentatives) in sets of genetically related
languages;
- cross-linguistic identification of faux amis within diminutives (and augmentatives);
- textual occurrence, frequency and pragmatic functions;
- translatability and compensation procedures and strategies in cases of non-parallelism;
- analysis of lexicographical representation of evaluative morphs.
One of the main prerequisites for effectively dealing with these and other related tasks is a
systemic collection of empirical data and their analysis not only on the basis of written texts,
which ideally should be corpus-based or in contrastive studies parallel-corpus based, but
above all their analysis on the basis of spoken discourse where the occurrence of evaluative
morphs is much higher and semantically and pragmatically more varied than in written
discourse.
Bibliography
BAUER Laurie, English Word-Formation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983.
BAUER Laurie, “No Phonetic Iconicity in Evaluative Morphology?”, Studia Linguistica, Vol.
50, 1996: 189-206.
BAUER Laurie, “State of the Art in the Field of Word-Formation Universals”, Paper presented
at the International Conference Universals in Word-Formation, Košice, 2009.
BAUER Laurie, “Evaluative morphology: in search of universals”, Studies in Language 21,
1997: 533-575.
BAUER Laurie, An Introduction to International Varieties of English, Edinburgh, Edinburgh
University Press, 2002.
BÁZLIK Miroslav & AMBRUS Patrik, A Grammar of Legal English. Bratislava, Iura Edition,
2008.
BÖHMEROVÁ Ada, “Feminine Markers – First, Last, Last But Not Least, Or Will They at All
Last?”, Universitas Comeniana, Philologica LX. Eighty Years of English Studies at the
Faculty of Arts, Bratislava, Univerzita Komenského, 2004: 43-53.
BÖHMEROVÁ Ada, Slovak for You. Slovak for Speakers of English for Beginners and
Intermediate Students, 4th revised and extended edition, Bratislava, Perfekt –
Wauconda, Bolchazy-Carducci, USA, 2006.
BÖHMEROVÁ Ada (co-author), English-Slovak – Slovak-English Dictionary, Bratislava,
Ottovo nakladatelství (forthcoming).
CHAMONIKOLASOÁ Jana & RAMBOUSEK Jiří, “Diminutive expressions in translation: a
comparative study of English and Czech”, Belgian Journal of Linguistics 21,
© Lexis 2011
Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company (NDL), Volume 21, Number 1,

2007: 51-67.
CZAMBEL Samuel, Rukoväť spisovnej reči slovenskej, Martin, 1919.
DOKULIL Miloš, Tvoření slov v češtině 1. Teorie odvozování slov, Praha, ČAV, 1962.
DOLNÍK Juraj, Jazyk a hodnotenie, Banská Bystrica, Univerzita Mateja Bela, 1999.
DRESSLER Wolfgang U. & MERLINI BARBARESI Lavinia, Morphopragmatics. Diminutives
and Intensifiers in Italian, German and Other Languages, Berlin, Mouton de Gruyer,
1994.
FILIPEC Josef & ČERMÁK František, Česká lexikologie, Praha, Academia, 1985.
FURDÍK Juraj, Slovenská slovotvorba, ed. Martin Ološtiak, Prešov, Náuka, 2004.
GLADKOVA Hana, “Deminutiva v bulharštině a v češtině”, in ČERMÁK, František. a KOCEK,
Jan (eds.), Mnohojazyčný korpus InterCorp: Možnosti studia, Nakladatelství Lidové
Noviny, Praha, 2010 (forthcoming).
GLADKOVA Hana, “Centrum a periferie kategorie deminutivnosti (Co ukázala sonda do
paralelního korpusu)”, Človek a jeho jazyk. Zborník z konferencie v Smoleniciach
venovanej profesorovi Jánovi Horeckému, Bratislava, SAV, 2010 (forthcoming).
GREGOVÁ Renáta & PANOCOVÁ Renáta, “On Phonetic Iconicity in Evaluative Morphology
of Slavonic Languages”, Galicia English Teachings: Old Pitfalls, Changing Attitudes
and New Vistas, Rzeszów, Wydavnictwo Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego, 2009: 43-50.
HORECKÝ Ján, “Zdrobneniny. Zveličujúce názvy”, Slovenská lexikológia, Bratislava,
Slovenské pedagogické nakladateľstvo, 1971: 163-168.
HORECKÝ Ján, Základy Jazykovedy, Bratislava, Slovenské pedagogické nakladateľstvo, 1978.
HORECKÝ Ján & RÁCOVÁ Anna, Slovník jazykovedných termínov, Bratislava, Slovenské
pedagogické nakladateľstvo, 1979.
JÁNOŠÍK Anton, “Gramatický a prirodzený rod augmentatív na -isko”, Slovenská reč 13, No.
1-2, 1947/48: 17-25.
KÁŇA Tomáš, “Česká substantivní deminutiva a jejich protějšky v němčine a angličtině”, in
ČERMÁK František & KOCEK Jan (eds.), Mnohojazyčný korpus InterCorp: Možnosti
studia. Nakladatelství Lidové Noviny, Praha, 2010.
KÖRTVÉLYESSY Lívia, “A Cross-Linguistic Research into Phonetic Iconicity”, Lexis 6, 2011:
27-39: http://screcherche.univ-lyon3.fr/lexis/spip.php?article169
Krátky slovník slovenského jazyka (KSSJ), KAČALA Ján & PISÁRČIKOVÁ Mária (eds.),
Bratislava, Veda, 1997.
MATHESIUS Vilém, “Funkční lingvistika”, Sborník přednášek přednesených na Prvém sjezdu
československých profesorů filozofie, filologie a historie v Praze 3. – 7. dubna 1929.
Praha, Stálý přípravný výbor sjezdový, 1929: 118-130. [also in MATHESIUS Vilém,
Jazyk, kultura a slovesnost, Praha: Odeon, 1982: 29-38.
MISTRÍK Jozef et al. (eds), Encyklopédia jazykovedy, Bratislava, Obzor, 1993.
NÁBĚLKOVÁ Mira, “Domiská, knižiská, psiská a iné modifikačné substantívne deriváty v
slovensko-českom pohľade”, Zborník z konferencie venovanej PhDr. Kláre
Buzássyovej, Bratislava, Veda, 2010 (forthcoming).
ONDRUS Pavel, HORECKÝ Ján & FURDÍK Juraj, Súčasný slovenský spisovný jazyk.
Lexikológia, Bratislava, Slovenské pdagogické nakladateľstvo, 1979.
ORAVEC Ján, BAJZÍKOVÁ Eugénia & FURDÍK Juraj, Súčasný slovenský spisovný jazyk.
Morfológia, Bratislava, Slovenské pedagogické nakladateľstvo, 1988.
PLAG Ingo, Word-Formation in English, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
PLANK Frans & FILIMONOVA Elena, The Universals Archive, Retrieved 20.02.2010 from
http://ling.uni-konstanz.de/pages/proj/sprachbau.htm
© Lexis 2011
RONČÁKOVÁ Terézia, “Štýlové presahy v náboženskej publicistike”, Slavica Slovaca 2, 2009:

119-148.
SCALISE Sergio, Generative Morphology, Dordrecht, Foris, 1984.
SCHNEIDER Klaus P., Diminutives in English, Tübingen, Niemeyer, 2003.
SMIEŠKOVÁ Elena, “Augmentatíva a ich miesto v slovníku spisovného jazyka”, Slovenská
reč, 21, No. 1-2, 1956: 79-81.
STUMP Gregory T., “How Peculiar is Evaluative Morphology?”, Journal of Linguistics 29,
1993: 1-36.
ŠTEKAUER Pavol, “Onomasiological Theory of Word-formation”, in Encyclopaedia of
Language and Linguistics. Oxford, Elsevier, Vol. 9, 34-7.
ŠTEKAUER Pavol, GREGOVÁ Renáta, KOLAŘÍKOVÁ Zuzana, KÖRTVÉLYESSY Lívia &
PANOCOVÁ Renáta, “On phonetic iconicity in evaluative morphology. Languages of
Europe”, in ŠTEKAUER, Pavel, TOMAŠČÍKOVÁ Slávka & WITAŁISZ Wladisław (eds),
Culture, Language and Literature Across Border Regions, Krosn, PWSZK, 2009.
VACHEK Josef (ed.), A Prague School reader in linguistics, Bloomington, Indiana University
Press, 1966.
© Lexis 2011
The Morphopragmatics of the Diminutive

Morpheme (-ba/-wa) in Akan
Clement K. I. Appah & Nana Aba Appiah Amfo1
Abstract
The present paper is concerned with the diminutive morpheme -wa/-ba in Akan. It examines
the form, the origin and the various meanings associated with diminutive forms in the
language. We attribute the origin of the diminutive to the lexical word for ‘child/offspring’
ɔba, basing our argument on language internal evidence as well as cross-linguistic
generalizations. The identified meanings of the Akan diminutive are as follows: small,
young/offspring, feminine, member, insignificant/nonserious, affection/admiration and
contempt/disdain. Having identified the basic meaning of the diminutive as ‘small’,
Jurafsky’s [1996] Radial Category theory provides us with a basis to adequately account for
the various meanings; drawing a link, through metaphors and inferences, between the
diachronic and the synchronic meanings.
Keywords: Akan – diminutive – inference – metaphor – morphopragmatics – radial category
1
Lancaster University, England and University of Ghana, Ghana: c.appah@lancaster.ac.uk,
nanaamfo@ug.edu.gh
© Lexis 2011
1. Introduction
The diminutive has been an object of study for quite a long time, dating back to the
nineteenth century (cf. Coleridge [1857], Lewis [1832] inter alia), and this tradition of
research on diminutive has continued well up until now.2 In spite of this rich history of
research, there has been comparatively little research done on diminutives in African
languages and particularly languages belonging to the Kwa sub-group of the Niger-Congo
language phylum.3 This paper is an effort to provide more insight into the nature of
diminutives in African languages by focusing on the diminutive in Akan, a Niger-Congo
language of the Kwa sub-group. It addresses issues relating to the form of the diminutive, its
semantic origin, and analyzes the various senses evoked by the use of the diminutive. The
analysis of the varying meanings of the Akan diminutive is modelled after Jurafsky’s [1996]
Radial Category theory; and like Schneider [2003: 4], we acknowledge that the meaning
derived in on-line interpretation by interlocutors of a given diminutive form depends “on the
specific interplay of linguistic and situational factors within a given context.” We do find that
the Radial Category model provides a principled and neat way of accounting for both the
synchronic and diachronic aspects of the meaning of the diminutive. It also makes it possible
to explain the various, sometimes even conflicting synchronic meanings associated with the
diminutive.
The diminutive in Akan is formally realized as a suffix, the actual form varying between
the Twi (Asante and Akuapem) dialects and the Fante dialect.4 Whereas in Fante, the
diminutive is almost consistently realized as -ba (as in kakra-ba ‘small’, dwordwor-ba
‘smallish’, Essuman-ba ‘girl’s name, female of Essuman’, adwuma-ba ‘an insignificant piece
of work’); in Twi, it is often realized as -wa (as in kete-wa ‘small’, kurokuro-wa ‘smallish’,
Takyi-wa ‘girl’s name, female of Takyi’, adwuma-wa ‘an insignificant piece of work’). In
spite of the varying phonological shapes of the suffixes in the different dialects, we are
convinced that it is the same semantic concept in question here – i.e. both forms represent (are
allomorphs of) the diminutive. It is interesting that the words for small in both Fante and Twi,
kakraba and ketewa respectively, contain the respective diminutive suffixes. We will return to
the issue of allomorphy in the following section as we relate the present form of the
diminutive to its origin.
The data used in the present paper comes from a variety of sources. Diminutive forms (i.e.
words containing the diminutive suffix) were collected from Christaller’s [1933] dictionary of
the “Asante and Fante”5 language and the Akan Dictionary [2006] produced by the
Department of Linguistics, University of Ghana. An additional database of diminutives was
created by the authors, by soliciting for diminutive forms, including female names, from a
number of native speakers. In terms of dialect coverage, the data includes words from the
three major dialects, Fante (Fa.), Asante (As.) and Akuapem (Ak.). Where lexical items are
unique to specific dialects they will be marked accordingly, otherwise, it should be taken that
the lexical item in question is used in all three dialects.
2
See Schneider [2003] and Dressler and Merlini Barberesi [1994] for fuller bibliographical reports.
3
Research on Diminutives in African languages has mostly concentrated on Bantu languages particularly
Swahili, (see Schneider [2003] and the references therein). Heine et al. [1991] is an exception; it provides,
among other things, an analysis of the Ewe (Niger-Congo, Kwa) diminutive -vi in the context of
grammaticalization.
4
Akan is a cover term for at least eleven dialects. Three of these dialects – Fante, Asante and Akuapem are
considered as major dialects simply due to their literary status; the latter two (along with others not mentioned
here) are often referred to collectively as Twi. In this paper, Twi is used in specific reference to the Asante and
Akuapem dialects.
5
Christaller [1933] referred to the Akan language as Twi, with the Asante and Fante as dialects.
© Lexis 2011
Various interpretations can be assigned to diminutive forms in Akan. They range from
concrete concepts such as small, young/offspring, female, membership, etc., to attitudinal
ones like insignificance, disdain, affection and admiration. We will be exploring how these
different meaning components interact. The rest of this paper is organized as follows: section
2 examines the form and origin of the Akan diminutive. In section 3, the various meanings
associated with the diminutive are identified. As a prelude to section 5 which outlines
Jurafsky’s radial category theory, section 4 captures some previous approaches to the analysis
of the diminutive. Section 6 is a discussion of the metaphors and inferences that motivate
various senses of the diminutive in general and the Akan diminutive in particular. We end that
section by proposing a structure for the semantics of the diminutive in Akan. Section 7 is the
conclusion.
2. The form and origin of the Akan diminutive

As mentioned in the introduction, the phonological shape of the Akan diminutive varies
between the three major dialects; Fante consistently uses the suffix -ba while the Twi dialects
mostly use -wa, even though in some cases, both dialects (but especially Akuapem) employs
the suffix -ba. Typically, when the diminutive form is used in reference to an offspring, and
also when it indicates membership, then -ba is maintained in all three dialects as shown in (1),
even if there is an additional attitude conveyed, as may be the case when (1c) is used in
context.
(1) a. ɔheneba (As./Ak.), ɔhenba (Fa.) ‘prince/princess, lit. child of a king’

b. ɔkraba (As./Ak.), agyinamoaba (Fa.) ‘kitten, i.e. offspring of a cat’
c. oburoniba ‘a young white or lightly coloured person’
d. aponkyeba ‘a kid, i.e. offspring of a goat’
e. asɔreba ‘a church member, lit. child of a church’
f. ɔmamba ‘citizen, lit. child of a nation’
In many other cases, however, the suffix is represented as -wa, as the Twi examples in (2)
indicate.
(2) a. adehyewa ‘a young noble man’

b. ɔbotafowa ‘a child of one to seven years’
c. darewa ‘a small fish hook’
d. ɔdanwa ‘a small house, cottage’
e. adewa ‘a trifle’
An adequate phonological account of why the diminutive suffix is -ba in some instances
and -wa in others have so far proved elusive, as these forms do not appear to follow a
consistent phonological pattern. The reason for the choice of allomorph could be semantic;
that is, the Twi dialects, particularly Asante, maintains, with few exceptions, an animacy
distinction; reserving -ba for animate entities and employing -wa for inanimate entities.
(However, see discussion on female names in section 3.3). We do consider this issue far from
closed though. Intuitively and empirically, there is no doubt that both -wa and -ba suffixes are
allomorphs of the diminutive. Another reason that can be advanced here is that in
grammaticalization studies, it has been attested that Fante generally tends to change at a
slower rate than Twi, and it still has a number of older forms and features as compared to
© Lexis 2011
Twi.6 We, therefore, consider -wa a (phono-)semantically conditioned allomorph of the

diminutive morpheme -ba.
Structurally, the diminutive can be recognized in two groups of words, namely Groups A
and B. For Group A words, the base word can be clearly delineated from the diminutive
morpheme, and the result will be a recognizable lexical item (mostly a noun) plus the
diminutive suffix. On the other hand, the base words in Group B are synchronically fused
with the diminutive suffix such that they are no longer recognizable as full lexical items with
distinguishable meanings in the language. That is, even though we see aspects of diminutive
meaning running through the Group B examples, we cannot nonetheless make legitimate
sense of the remaining part of the word without the diminutive suffix. The phenomenon
observed in Group A allows for a relatively high level of productivity whereas those in Group
B can be said to be lexicalized.7
Group A
a. a-nomaa-ba b. a-dua-ba c. a-de-wa d. bɔtɔ-wa
SG-bird-DIM SG-tree-DIM8 SG-thing-DIM sack/bag-DIM
‘baby/small bird’ ‘fruit’ ‘trifle’ ‘small bag’
Group B
a. apereperewa ‘a kind of small musical instrument’
b. dwordworba (Fa.) ‘smallish/shortish’
c. mpokuwa ‘developing breast (of a teenage girl)’
d. apakyiwa ‘a small calabash with a cover’
As regards the origin of the diminutive suffix, we postulate that it originates from the word
for child/offspring which is (ɔ)ba.9 We do so for two reasons: first, there is an obvious
phonological identity between the diminutive suffix and the word for child, and we do not
assume this to be a coincidence, as we observe the meaning ‘child’ and its associated concepts
in the various interpretations of the diminutive forms. Second, the diachronic association of
the diminutive with the word for child has been borne out in a number of (particularly
African) languages (cf. Greenberg [1959]) notably from the Niger-Congo family. Heine et al.
[1991] reports that the Proto-Bantu noun *-gana ‘child’ is the source of diminutive markers in
South-eastern Bantu languages like Venda, Tsonga, Sotho and Zulu. Following Timyan
[1977], Heine et al. [1991: 94] indicates that in the Kode dialect of Baule,10 what appears to
be the diminutive suffix is possibly a “grammaticalized form of the noun ba (pl. mma-mu
‘child’). Notable among all of these associations between ‘child’ and the diminutive suffix is
Heine et al’s suggestion that the Ewe (one of Akan’s closest relatives) diminutive suffix -vi is
derived from the word for child vi. Jurafsky [1996] also makes similar observation and cites
other languages from Asia and elsewhere which demonstrate this phenomenon. His examples
which attest to the child-diminutive relationship are reproduced below.
6
Cf. studies regarding the auxiliary verb san ‘return’ and the comitative verb n(y)e ‘be with’, Amfo [2005],
[2010] respectively.
7
Details of the components of these two groups and the semantics of their ‘members’ is the subject of another
study in progress.
8
DIM stands for diminutive.
9
The full form including the prefix is used mostly for human entities and in utterance initial position, otherwise
ba is used. Note that in Akan the word ɔba can only mean ‘child’ in the sense of offspring. ‘Child’ in the sense of
‘a person below a certain age’ is abofra (Twi), abofraba (Fa.)
10
Baule, just like Akan, descends from the Central Tano group of the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo phylum.
© Lexis 2011
(3) Ewe vi << vi ‘child’

Gbeya (Niger-Congo) be << beem ‘child’
Londo (Bantu) i-Luyana( Bantu) nwana-< < nwáná ‘child’
-ana << ana ‘child’
(4) Mandarin (Chinese) -er << er ‘son’

(only bound, cf. erzi ‘son’)
Cantonese (Chinese) -dzai << dzai ‘son’
Fuzhou (Chinese) -kiaŋ << kiaŋ ‘child’
Miao te - << te ‘son, child’
Boro - sa << -sa ‘child’
(cf. bisa ‘his son, child’)
Classical Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) -bu - -U << bu ‘child’
Eastern Kayah (Tibeto-Burman) -phú << phú ‘child’
(only bound, cf. vεphú ‘my child’)
Ainu (Isolate)
Thai (Kam-Tai) -po << po ‘child/son’
lûuk- << lûuk ‘child’
(5) Nahuatl -pīl << pil ‘child’
Awtuw (North New Guinea) -yӕn << yӕn ‘child’
Tboli (Austronesian) ngá << ngá ‘child’
(Jurafsky [1996: 562, ex. 36-38])
Having established the origin of the diminutive suffix, we outline the various meanings
that are associated with the diminutive in the following section.
3. Meanings
Cross-linguistically, diminutives are associated with the basic meaning of ‘small’.11 Even
so, the range of meanings expressed by the diminutive in each particular language is not
confined to smallness. The following subsections look at the various meanings and
interpretations we have identified with the Akan diminutive; for each group addressed in each
subsection, we give some examples which illustrate the meaning in question.
3.1. Small
The meaning ‘small’ is one of the basic (if not the basic) meaning that many researchers
have associated with the diminutive in a number of languages. Jurafsky [1996: 534], for
instance, defines the diminutive as “any morphological device which means at least ‘small’.”
Schneider (2003: 10) says that “[P]rototypically, diminutives express smallness”. Dressler and
Merlini Barbaresi [1994: 85] in apparent recognition of the fundamental significance of the
meaning ‘small’ of the diminutive, refers to ‘smallness’ as its “morphosyntactic denotation”
in contrast to other features such as endearment which they consider as its connotation. The
situation is no different in Akan, as the data in (6) show.
(6) a. asekamba ‘a pen knife’

b. dwordworba ‘smallish/shortish’
11
See Schneider [2003], Jurafsky [1996], Booij [2007], for discussion.
© Lexis 2011
c. abompuruwa ‘a small money box’

d. ɔdanwa ‘small house, cottage’
e. darewa ‘small fish hook’
In Akan, the concept of ‘small’ is associated with a good number of diminutive forms in the
language, either solely or in combination with other concepts such as feminine, young,
insignificance, etc.
3.2. Young
The meaning ‘young’ is closely related to the meaning ‘small’ as well as the source of the
diminutive, which is ɔba ‘child/offspring’. One’s offspring, up to a certain extent, is expected
to be small. We need to bear in mind that the feature ‘small’ is not absolute; and it is so in
comparison to a certain norm. Again, this meaning component has the potential of combining
with other senses of the diminutive. In (7b), for instance, one can talk about a conflation of
the diminutive meanings ‘young’ and ‘feminine’.
(7) a. abarimawa (Twi) ‘boy, lad’

b. aketesiaba (Fa.) ‘a young woman’
c. abotafowa ‘a child of one to seven years’
d. abɔtoaba ‘a baby’
e. adehyewa ‘a young nobleman’
3.3. Feminine
The meaning component ‘feminine’ can be seen in some diminutive forms such as
aberewa ‘old lady’ (8a). Even though the morphological breakdown of this word may not be
clearly apparent, one can argue that it is made up of the following morphemes: a-bere-wa
‘NOM-to ripen-DIM’. If this is correct, then the concept of old woman is presented as ‘a
small mature person’. Thus we see the interaction between the diminutive senses ‘small’ and
‘feminine’.
(8) a. aberewa ‘old woman’

b. abaayewa ‘young woman (cf. Aketesiaba, Fa.)’
c. aborɔwa ‘a European woman’
d. Egyirba ‘female name (feminine Egyir)’
e. abaawa12 ‘maid servant’
Feminine meaning or gender (for the relevant languages) as one of the meanings of the
diminutive is not uncommon. Jurafsky [1996: 536], for example, cites some examples from
Hebrew, Hindi and Berber. As indicated earlier, the feminine concept communicated by the
diminutive is usually done in combination with other diminutive-associated concepts. For
instance, the words ababaawa/abaayewa (As./Ak.)/aketesiaba (Fa.) ‘young lady’
communicate both youthfulness and femininity; thus one who is youthful yet not feminine or
feminine yet not youthful cannot be referred to by any of these afore-mentioned labels.
Finally, we would like to comment on the suffixes that are found in a number of female
Akan names. Here again, there are significant dialectal variations. A number of Fante names
12
In certain contexts, this word could be used derogatorily in reference to a female individual. This, of course,
follows from the idea that the job of a maid is by no means prestigious, and may even be despised.
© Lexis 2011
end in the suffix -ba (occasionally -wa/-ma) as demonstrated in Table 1, below. Asante has a
mixture of -wa, -waa and maa, and Akuapem has -bea.
It seems to us that in Fante names, the diminutive -ba (and what appears to be its
intervocalic variant -wa/-ma)13 conflates the meanings of feminine and small. As Booij [2007]
mentions, the link between ‘small’ and ‘feminine’ may have a physical component to it;
women are expected to be generally smaller in size (in comparison to their male counterparts),
do ‘smaller’ things, eat smaller portions of food, etc. There is also a cultural dimension to it,
where femininity is associated with nonseriousness, one of the attested pragmatic
interpretations of the diminutive (cf. Dressler and Merlini-Barbaresi [1994]). This is borne out
by the fact that in traditional Akan societies, women are excluded from serious discussions
which lead to the taking of important decisions. Serious issues are not mbaasem ‘female
matters’.14
Fante Asante Akuapem

Essumanba Asantewa Asarebea
Kwegyirba Takyiwa Adubea
Fynnba Agyekumwaa Sakyibea
Egyirba Agyeiwaa Agyiribea
Mbeaba Sarponmaa Ntowbea
Acquaaba Akyemponmaa Oparebea
(Akwaaba)
Benyiwa Frimponmaa Addobea
Quainuwa Boatemaa Ayebea
(Kwenuwa)
Kwamsema Boahemaa Otubea
Mensema Okyerewaa Okyerebea
Table 1: Akan Female Names
In Asante, however, we see the occurrence of the suffixes -wa, -waa and maa in the female
names and -bea is the default Akuapem female name suffix. Our conclusion is that Asante and
Akuapem make use of suffixes from two sources for female names: (1) from (ɔ)ba, the origin
of the diminutive and (2) from ɔbaa, the Akan word meaning ‘female’. The Akuapem
equivalent of ɔbaa is ɔbea, and we see the root of the word retained in the exact same form,
this time as a suffix, in the corresponding female names. We arrive at -waa from -baa through
the same, yet not fully understood, process by which the diminutive suffix becomes -wa from
(ɔ)ba. For the male names which end in nasals (i.e. a nasal consonant or a nasalized vowel),
the suffix then becomes -maa. This again, in another way shows the cultural conflation of the
diminutive concept and femininity. It is interesting that the words for ‘child’ and ‘female’,
from which these suffixes derive, are phonologically very similar, and this has probably
resulted in the present situation where Akan speakers make almost equal use of the two forms
in the creation of female names from their male counterparts. Indeed, the semblance of
diminutive morphemes to morphemes that form female names from male versions is well
documented. Booij [2007: 223], for instance, cites the Dutch example in (9) and observes that
13
This phonological observation is limited to the context of female Fante names; we do not have enough
evidence at this point to generalize for other contexts.
14
This is not to suggest that women have absolutely no significant roles to play in Akan traditional societies.
Indeed, they sometimes do; in many cases they are the kingmakers, however a female cannot, as a matter of
traditional practice, ascend the throne.
© Lexis 2011
the extension of diminution to feminine gender may also come under the evaluative use of the
diminutive to the extent that women are physically smaller than men.
(9) Geert ‘boy’s name’ Geert-je ‘girl’s name’
3.4. Member
Sometimes a diminutive form may indicate membership of a group, as the examples in

(10) show. The entities referred to by these forms “are categorised as members of the class
designated by the base word” (Schneider [2003: 11]).
(10) a. asoreba ‘church member’

b. kuroba/mamba ‘townsfolk/citizen’
c. adasamba ‘men, children of men, i.e. humanity’
The words so marked in Akan do not indicate ‘small’, as suggested by Schneider. However,
within a paradigm, situated in the appropriate context, they may be considered as ‘low
ranking’ constituents of the body designated by the base, as demonstrated by the data in (11):
(11) a. asɔreba ‘ordinary church member’ vs. asɔrepanyin ‘church elder’

b. ɔmamba ‘citizen’ vs. ɔmanpanyin ‘head of state’
3.5. Insignificant / Nonserious
Insignificance is one of the pragmatic or evaluative (cf. Booij [2007]) interpretations

associated with the diminutive. Such words when used in contexts refer to ideas, events or
activities which are deemed to be of little importance. Mpεpεwa, for example, refers to ears of
grain which are inadvertently left behind by harvesters in fields. They are considered as
leftovers, and are not significant to the farmer who has probably had a bumper harvest.
Likewise, adwumawa is used in reference to a job which is of little worth and possibly
involves little effort. The speaker who uses these forms may thus express an attitude of lack of
appreciation for the entity in question.
(12) a. mpεpεwa ‘ears of grain left behind by harvesters’

b. adewa ‘a little thing, trifle’
c. adwumawa ‘an insignificant piece of work’
As the data in (12) show, this sense of the diminutive relates mostly to non-human,
inanimate entities. We, however, found one example (Christaller [1933: 171]) which refers to
a human being – ɔhenewa ‘a small, petty king, prince, chief’ (formed from ɔhene
‘king/chief’).
3.6. Affection / Admiration / Disdain / Contempt
Other evaluative meanings which may sometimes be associated with the diminutive are
affection, admiration, disdain and contempt, as exemplified by (13-16).
© Lexis 2011
AFFECTION
(13) a. ɔdɔba ‘dearly beloved child’

b. dɔfowa ‘lover
ADMIRATION
(14) aniεdemba ‘a stubborn person’
DISDAIN
(15) a. abomfiawa ‘a despicable person’

b. ɔhenewa ‘a small, petty king, prince, chief’
CONTEMPT
(16) aperewa ‘a contemptuous way of referring to one who behaves like an older
person, usually used in reference to females’
Such meanings have been characterized by some writers as connotative or associative

meanings (cf. Schneider [2003]). For instance, some diminutive forms may express smallness
plus an attitude. Some scholers (for example Bybee [1985]) have suggested that a diminutive
form must of necessity include the semantic feature ‘small’. The diminutive forms we have
identified in Akan which express any of the above-mentioned attitudes such as dɔfowa ‘lover’
(13b) or abomfiawa ‘despicable person’ (15), do not necessarily convey smallness as part of
the communicated meaning. We do side with Strang [1968: 136] on her observation that there
is diachronic link between smallness and attitude, and that, through a grammaticalization
process, diminutives have taken on a range of meanings “from affection through
condescension to contempt.”
It is worth noting that whatever attitude expressed by a diminutive form is the result of the
interaction between the meanings of the base and the diminutive morpheme, and, in many
cases, the linguistic and extra-linguistic contexts. Attaching the diminutive suffix to a base
which basically means love can only evoke feelings of affection. Aniεdem-ba ‘brave + DIM’
for instance, although put under admiration, may suggests an attitude of admiration or disdain
depending on the communicative situation; the latter in a context where the referent is being
bullish, and the former in a situation where the referent has exhibited bravery. The
morphological make-up of aperewa is as follows: a-pere-wa ‘NOM-to fidget-DIM’. Since the
base verb pere ‘to fidget’, has no positive connotations, adding the diminutive suffix to it still
causes the resultant word to remain non-positive.
The thought expressed in the preceding paragraph is consistent with Schneider’s [2003:
96-102] discussion of the English diminutive morpheme -let, in such words as, kinglet,
princelet, dukelet, lordlet, bosslet, godlet etc., where he indicates that when these diminutive
forms are used in reference to the substantive holders of these titles, they “are usually
depreciatives, expressing a negative assessment of the referent and conveying contempt”. This
use of the diminutive presents the referents as incompetent, unimportant and petty. The same
can be said about the Akan example in (15b). However, these negative associations do not
apply when the referents is a child. Schneider cites the following lines from a nativity play
(from A.S. Byatt’s novel Still Life) where three children play the three Magi.
© Lexis 2011
Three diminutive Kinglets, carrying a Kelly lamp, a silver sugar castor, Mrs Ellenby’s Chinese
enamelled cigarette box, bowed, wobbled, kneeled (BYA 40)
Schneider [2003: 100] makes the following observation:
The adjectival modifier diminutive indicates that the actors are very young, the form kinglets
conveys that they are not real kings. At the same time, this diminutive expresses affection towards
the child actors and show that the person who uses this form is moved by watching them. Thus,
while a deficit is expressed, this deficit is not evaluated in a negative way, since the relevant adult
norms do not apply in the given situation.15
This confirms the fact that the interpretation of the diminutive may depend on extra-
linguistics considerations.
The following sections provide a description of Jurafsky’s [1996] Radial category theory,
and demonstrate how Akan fits into this model. Before then, however, we provide a summary
of previous approaches to the analysis of the diminutive. It is worth pointing out that these
sections draw very much on Jurafsky [1996].
4. Previous approaches to the analysis of the diminutive

Two main approaches to the characterization of the wide range of the semantics of the
diminutive are identified. They are the Abstractionist and the HOMONYMY approaches. The
typical abstractionist view is represented by Chao’s [1947: 35], cited in Jurafsky [1996: 537]
characterization of the Cantonese tone-shift diminutive as “that familiar thing one often
speaks of.” Jurafsky critiques the abstractionist approach (cf. Chao [1947], Shetter [1959]), as
often retreating to vague abstractions, when confronted with the seemingly unlimited range of
the meanings expressed by the diminutive. Referring to Grimm’s [1967], characterization of
the general meaning of the diminutive as ‘taking away something of the force of a word”,
Jurafsky notes that “[T]here is much in Grimm’s abstraction that seems correct, particularly in
modelling the approximation, resemblance, and hedging senses.” That notwithstanding, he
[1996: 537] notes three instances of the use of the diminutive which Grimm’s abstractionist
approach fails to account for. The first is “the individuating and deictic exactness cases” such
as “the use of the diminutive on words meaning ‘now’ or ‘here’ to mean ‘exactly now’ or
‘exactly here’.” The second is the “intensification sense where the diminutive modifies words
meaning ‘small’ to produce words meaning ‘very small’ (e.g., Latin parvulus small-DIM
‘very small’)”. The third, which, according to Jurafsky is the most problematic aspect of this
abstractionist approach, is “its failure to cover any of the more pragmatic senses of the
diminutive, such as the common affectionate or pejorative uses.”16
The other abstractionist approach considered by Jurafsky relies on single abstract
concepts such as ‘small’ or ‘child’ in characterizing the diminutive. This is illustrated by
Wierzbicka’s [1984] argument that “metaphors from ‘small/child’ are the basis of the
affection and contempt senses of Polish diminutives.” Whereas, Jurafsky agrees with the
intuition that the concepts ‘child’ and ‘small’ are fundamental, he [1996: 538] observes that
they are not enough to help account for the wide range of functions of the diminutive. He
argues that “[W]ithout metaphorical, inferential, or abstractive extensions, ‘small’ cannot
model the individuating or exactness sense, or the use of the diminutive to mark an ‘imitation’
15
Emphasis added.
16
Schneider [2003: 1] also identifies this lack of attention to the pragmatics of the diminutive as one of three
main problems found with the analyses of diminutives, noting that “diminutives have not, as a rule, been studied
from a pragmatic perspective.”
© Lexis 2011
of a natural object.” As he puts it, “[I]t is hard to imagine a definition which referred to
‘small’ in an abstract enough way to cover, for example, Spanish boca ‘mouth’/boquete
‘hole’; indeed a boquete can be larger than a boca.”
The HOMONYMY approach to the characterization of the multi-functionality of the
diminutive, rather than building a single generalized abstract meaning for all senses of a
diminutive morpheme, models each sense as a separate lexeme. That is, the ‘small’ sense of
the diminutive is a separate lexeme from the ‘child’ sense. For this approach, it is assumed
that the fact that synchronically each lexeme is composed of the same phonological material
is “coincidental”. As Jurafsky observes, although the homonymy approach has the advantage
of avoiding vague and insupportable generalizations, from a diachronic perspective, it is
simply the wrong model for accounting for semantics of the diminutive, in the face of
abundant evidence of the extension of the meaning of the diminutive over time. Further
evidence against the homonymy approach comes from the fact that “the same varied and
complex senses of the diminutive occur again and again across languages.” Therefore,
Jurafsky [1996: 538] argues, “[I]f the different senses of the diminutive were unrelated, there
would be no reason to expect similar groupings of senses in different languages.” Aside from
its failure to account for the diachronic facts, “the homonymy approach fails to model the
complex overlapping between senses that often occur. For example, the affectionate,
contemptuous, and child-related senses of the diminutive are often present in words with the
approximative, small, or individuating/partitive meanings [1996: 538-9]. And as we can see
from the Akan examples, ‘feminine’ and ‘small’ or ‘feminine’ and ‘contempt’ sometimes
overlap in a single diminutive form.
The foregoing shows, Jurafsky [1996: 539] argues, that both the strict abstractionist and
the strict homonymy positions lack “the theoretical machinery for defining a polysemous
semantic category, since they are forced to stake out some arbitrary position between
abstraction and homonymy, pointing out some generalizations and avoiding others.” In
response, two lines of research (polysemy-based account of the diminutive in individual
languages17 and studies of universal tendencies in semantic change)18 have emerged,
providing the background for accounting for what Jurafsky [1996] calls “the astonishing
cross-linguistic regularity in the semantics of the diminutive as it extends beyond the meaning
‘small’” as well as the development of the various senses over time.19 These two lines of
research are fundamental to the radial category approach which we discuss in the next section.
17
Including diachronically motivated studies – Jurafsky’s [1988] account of Cantonese, Heine et al.’s [1991]
analysis of Ewe diminutive, Matisoff’s [1991] study of Thai diminutives, Contini-Morava’s [1995] account of
Swahili noun classes (including diminutives), as well as Dressler & Merlini Babaresi’s [1994] synchronic
account of the diminutive in Italian, German and English.
18
With a long history going back to Bréal [1897], cited in Jurafsky [1996]. Studies on change that leads to
grammaticalization view change as unidirectional. This view of change in terms of UNIDIRECTIONALITY leads to
the view that predictions can be made about the direction of change along different axes. One view, called
BLEACHING (Givón [1975]), DESEMANTICIZATION (Heine & Reh [1984]), or GENERALIZATION (Bybee et al.
[1994]), claims that meaning changes from the more informative and specific to the more abstract and vague.
Another view of unidirectionality of change “focuses on the tendency of semantic change to proceed from the
‘real’ physical or spatial world or the ideational domain to create more qualitative, evaluative, and textual
meanings (Traugott [1982]; Sweetser [1990]; Frajzyngier [1991]; Heine et al. [1991], Hopper & Traugott
[2003]).”
19
See Jurafsky [1996: 539-541] for discussions of these lines of research.
© Lexis 2011
5. The Radial Category Theory

In accounting for the varying semantics of the diminutive beyond the putative basic
meaning of ‘small’ and the development of the various related senses, the radial category
approach combines tenets of the two research paradigms mentioned in the previous paragraph
(see also fn 19 and 20). On the one hand, it exploits the emphasis placed on the diachronic
relation between the senses of polysemous morphemes by the unidirectionality hypotheses,
with ordering constraints specifying which types of senses are derived from which others. On
the other hand, it accounts for the synchronic relations between senses of the diminutive by
focusing on the mechanisms of semantic change such as metaphor and inference.
5.1. The radial category
The radial category is characterized as a graphic representation of a polysemous category

which has internal structure consisting of a central sense of prototype together with
conceptual extensions, represented by a network of NODES and LINKS. “Nodes represent
prototypes of senses, while links represent metaphorical extensions, image schematic transfer,
transfers to different domains, or inferences” [1996: 542]. The radial category is seen both as
a synchronic object, describing the motivated relations between senses of a polysemous
category and as a diachronic object, capturing the generalization of various mechanisms of
semantic change.
Figure 1 is Jurafsky’s proposed universal structure for the semantics of the diminutive,
determined on both synchronic and diachronic evidence. This is consistent with the
expectation that the radial category will serve both diachronic and synchronic purposes. In
this figure, nodes are labelled with names of senses and arcs with mechanisms of semantic
change which include Metaphor (M), Inference (I), Generalization (G) and Lambda-
abstraction (L).
SEMANTIC
related-
related-to
imitation
G exactness
G,M partitive
small type-
type-of
CATEGORY CENTRALITY IS SIZE
I member approximation
SOCIAL GROUPS ARE FAMILIES L L,M
M L GENDER IS SIZE
I child small femal

affection M I M
I M M hedges
pets
intimacy contempt
PROPOSITIONS ARE OBJECTS
sympathy
PRAGMATICS
Figure 2: Jurafsky’s proposed universal structure for the semantics of the diminutive
On the synchronic level, the radial category accounts for the various senses of the diminutive
in an elegant manner by taking into account the kinds of metaphors and inferences, which
© Lexis 2011
relates the senses of the diminutive and thus motivate the senses themselves. This way, the
radial category is able to account for the apparent paradoxical senses of the diminutive such as
cases where the same morpheme marks both ‘intensification’ and ‘attenuation’. On the
diachronic level, the centre of the radial category serves as the basic (historical) sense from
which the semantic paths that the diminutive has taken over its development may be mapped.
5.2. On the predictive power of the radial category
The radial category approach agrees with the observed unidirectionality of semantic
change (cf. Heine et al. [1991]), showing that “the meanings of the diminutive in a particular
language will develop diachronically from central senses toward senses on the edge of the
category” (Jurafsky [1996: 543]). The universal radial category (Figure 1), for example,
shows domain shifts from the central physical domain of ‘size’ to the domains of ‘gender’
‘social power’ and ‘conceptual centrality’. Based on this, some cross-linguistic predictions
can be made in respect of diminutives and their distribution. That is, languages will share
common prototypes from which they may diverge in choosing coherent subsets of the
universally-sanctioned lines of development, yielding connected graphs beginning with the
prototype. This leads to the ultimate prediction that the central meaning of the diminutive,
‘child’, is historically prior and metaphorically and inferentially motivates the other senses
(cf. Wierzbicka [1984]). As we show in §3, the diminutive in Akan originates from the word
for child – ɔba and the closely related sense small, as predicted by Figure 1. It is from these
that the various senses of the diminutive in Akan develop through regular semantic extension
mechanisms like metaphor, inference and generalization (cf. Figure 3). For example, the
insignificant sense of the diminutive in Akan can be shown to derive from the small sense by
mean of the metaphor VALUE IS SIZE, by which speakers conceptualise the value of an item in
terms of size so that ‘big things’ are considered significant. In this context anything that is
small, is considered insignificant by inference (I). This can be shown by the extracted graph
in (Figure 2).
Insignificant
child small I G SIZE IS VALUE
Figure 1: The path for the sense insignificant (extracted from Figure 1)
5.3. The radial category and semantic change
The radial category has the virtue of being able to show, by means of various semantic
extension mechanisms, how multiple senses of a morpheme develop and how they relate.
Three such mechanisms are observed. One is METAPHOR, which is the means by which
meaning shifts between domains by mapping the sense of one domain unto another domain.
Another is INFERENCE or CONTEXT-INDUCED REINTERPRETATION, which is the mechanism
by which a morpheme acquires a new meaning through the conventionalization of what used
to be a derived implicature of its old meaning. The third is GENERALIZATION or BLEACHING
which is the process by which a sense is created by dropping specific features of meaning and
arriving at a meaning which is more general and less informative. In addition to these well
documented mechanisms of semantic change (cf. Heine et al. [1991], Traugott & König
[1991], Bybee et al. [1994]), Jurafsky [1996] argues that to account for certain senses of the
diminutive such as approximation and exactness, a new mechanism – LAMBDA-
ABSTRACTION, which gives rise to quantificational and second-order meanings from
© Lexis 2011
propositional ones is needed20. In the following, we show the extent to which the senses of the
diminutive in Akan may be accounted for by these mechanisms of semantic change.
6. The radial category and the senses of the diminutive in Akan

In section three, we outlined the senses of the diminutive that we found in the corpus on
which the present paper is based. They include: small, young, feminine, member,
insignificant/nonserious, affection/admiration, and disdain/contempt. In this section we
attempt to show which of the mechanisms of meaning change – metaphor, inference or
generalization – is at work in the development of these senses. We argue that metaphor and
inference are the two main mechanisms responsible for these meaning extensions. These are
discussed in turn.
6.1. The radial category and semantic change
Various metaphors may be employed to map senses of a polysemous morpheme. In the

case of the diminutive, Jurafsky notes two types of metaphors that may be used. They are
METAPHORS FOR GENDER and METAPHORS FOR CENTRALITY AND MARGINALITY. We discuss
these in turn.
6.1.1. Metaphors of gender and the diminutive
Jurafsky observes that the link between women and the diminutive rests on the metaphor
in (17), by which women are conceptualized as children.
(17) WOMEN ARE CHILDREN/SMALL THINGS
The full import of this metaphor may not be wholly applicable to Akan. It would only, work
for Akan with some modification. This is because in Akan women are not seen as ‘children’
per say, as the use of this metaphor suggests. As the discussion in §3.3 shows, women are
only sometimes regarded as not fit to handle certain “big things/issues” (cf., fn.16). The
metaphor for mapping the relation between female gender and the diminutive in Akan,
therefore, may be stated as in (18a).
(18) a. WOMEN ARE FIT FOR SMALL/NONSERIOUS THINGS21

b. VALUE IS SIZE / SIZE IS VALUE
It may be recalled that we referred to Booij’s [2007] observation that the link between the
diminutive and female gender may probably be because women are, in relative terms,
physically smaller than men. We believe that in Akan, the link may not just be physical, and
that underlying the supposed conceptual link between the diminutive and female gender is a
tacit value judgement, where the size of the referent is assumed to equal its value
(significance). In that sense, the referent of the diminutive will be assumed to be insignificant,
as captured by the metaphor in (18b). The foregoing is consistent with Dressler & Merlini
Barbaresi’s [1994] treatment of the diminutive in terms of the semantic category SMALL and
pragmatic category NONSERIOUS.
20
We will not comment further on this because that will take us too far afield, considering the focus of the
present paper. The interested reader may consult Jurafsky [1996: §4.4].
21
Also, WOMEN LIKE/DESERVE SMALL/NONSERIOUS THINGS.
© Lexis 2011
6.1.2. Metaphors and the use of diminutives for group membership
The other group of metaphors which Jurafsky [1996] discusses deal with centrality and
marginality. They include metaphors like;
(19) SOCIAL GROUPS ARE FAMILIES
(20) CATEGORY CENTRALITY IS SIZE
The metaphor in (19) models membership in social groups as a family, with some being
central, and others marginal, and the diminutive may be used to mark either.22 With the
metaphor in (20), centrality of a category is linked to size, so that central or prototypical
members are large whilst peripheral members are small.
Whereas the metaphor in (19) works for Akan, as will be shown below, the one in (20) is
somewhat off the mark. That is because in Akan, entities that Jurafsky calls central categories
(e.g., parents in the family) are not necessarily more central than others (e.g., children).
Again, asɔreba ‘church member’, ɔmamba ‘citizen’, etc are not necessarily considered as
marginal(ized) members of the ‘groups’ they belong to. We believe, therefore, that the
member sense of the diminutive in Akan comes from the conceptualization of social groups
as families (19), where the base names the family of which the referent of the diminutive form
is a member. This is borne out by the fact that the different senses of the diminutive derive
from the core meaning of ‘child’, and a child is born into a ‘group’ – family. It is actually an
anomaly in the traditional Akan society to find a child without a family. Indeed, the very
notion of ‘child’ conjures a sense of belonging to a larger group – the family. In this sense, the
relation between the base and the diminutive may be construed in terms of category centrality
but only to the extent that category centrality is viewed in terms of the metaphor in (21) where
the central member is seen as a parent and the diminutivized member is seen as a ‘child’.
(21) CATEGORY CENTRALITY IS PARENTHOOD
The same metaphor explains the small-type-of sense of the diminutive. That is, if A is a
‘child’ of B, then, up to a certain age, A is a small-type-of B and then also A is related to B.
6.2. Conventionalization of inference
Conventionalization of inference is described as the process by which a morpheme

acquires a meaning that had been an inference or implicature of its old meaning. It has its
roots in Grice’s [1975] discussion of conventionalized implicature, where it is argued that the
literal meaning of a construction often develops from the institutionalization of a
conventionalized implicature on the part of the addressee. Based on the claim that the
diminutive originates from a morpheme meaning ‘child’ or signifying ‘child’ in some way,
Jurafsky [1996: 551] argues, for example, that the ‘affection’ sense of the diminutive
developed through the conventionalization of implicature. As he puts it, “[G]iven this core
sense, then, and given the natural tendency to feel affection towards children, a hearer hearing
a core diminutive referring to children, will draw the natural inference that the speaker feels
affection toward the diminutivized object (child).” In Akan, this ‘affection’ sense of the
diminutive can be inferred from the ‘child’ sense of the diminutive. The same can be said
about the other pragmatic senses of the diminutive (the bottom half of the radial category –
Figure 3), which are arrived at through inferences from the more substantive senses of the
22
See Jurafsky [1996: 547-548] for discussions.
© Lexis 2011
diminutive (the top half of the radial category). Our difficulty is with appreciating the extent
to which these more pragmatic senses of the diminutive are conventionalized. Unlike the
description given by Jurafsky, these senses are not really conventionalized, so that when the
respective diminutive is used, the putative conventionalized meaning is evoked. We reckon
that they are still context-dependent. The ‘disdain’ or ‘contempt’ senses of the diminutive in
Akan are only inferred from the ‘small’ sense. As indicated in §3.6, the diminutive form
aniΕdemba ‘a stubborn person’ may invoke ‘admiration’ or ‘contempt’ depending on one’s
assessment of the prevailing circumstance. These senses are not conventionalized, though
they are the results of inference.
6.2.1. Conventionalized inferred meaning and the ‘small-type; sense of the

diminutive
Before we end the discussion, we will want to comment on one type of diminutive use
that is really conventionalized. This is what Jurafsky calls the ‘small-type’ sense, where the
diminutivized noun is a smaller form of the base with which it shares form and function. They
are exemplified by the data in Table 2 (Jurafsky [1996: 552, Table 14])
UNMARKED FORM DIMINUTIVE

CANTONESE toi 21
‘stage’ toi 35 ‘table’
OJIBWA waasgonechgan ‘lamp’ waasgonechgaans ‘flashlight’
HEBREW mapa ‘tablecloth’ mapit ‘napkin’
HEBREW pax ‘garbage can’ paxit ‘can’
FRENCH ciboule ‘onion’’ ciboulette ‘scallion’
EWE he ‘knife’ he-vi ‘razor’
DUTCH koek ‘cake’ koekie ‘biscuit’
POTAWATOMI mUt UkwE ‘tree, stick’ mUt Ukos. ‘twig’
Table 2: Lexicalized classificatory diminutives
Rhodes [1990], cited in Jurafsky [1996], refers to these as CLASSIFICATORY DIMINUTIVES

because the diminutivized objects are classified in the same ontological hierarchy as the larger
one. However, as Jurafsky [1996: 552] observes,
these are not just cases where a language marks two objects as being identical except for variation
in size; in other words these are not concepts which are ‘-emically’ the same. In each case, the
language distinguishes between a smaller version of an object, [which may be] marked with an
adjective meaning ‘small’, and the diminutive, which marks a separate concept.
This class of ‘small-type’ diminutives are lexicalized. “The marker may begin by purely
marking size, but eventually the diminutive form becomes frequent enough that it becomes
susceptible to lexical drift” [1996: 552]. The Akan examples in (22) are illustrative of the
lexicalized ‘small-type’ diminutives.
(22) a. dade ‘metal’ dade-wa ‘nail’ (AS)

b. hεn ‘vehicle’ hεm-ba ‘canoe’ (FA)
These are the real examples of lexicalized diminutive forms. That is, they started out as
diminutive forms but have taken on a life of their own becoming integrated into the lexical
system of the language.
© Lexis 2011
6.3. A note on Generalization
There is a bit of generalization in the conceptualization of some of the senses of the

diminutive. We argued (§ 3.3) that women are assumed not to be fit for some important
things. Therefore, there is the tendency for some to generalize this attitude, regarding issues
relating to or from women (or even women themselves) as nonserious. The same can be said
for the ‘small’ sense of the diminutive as it relates to children. In a society where children are
supposed to be seen and not heard, anything from children, who are generally ‘small’, may
generally be assumed to be ‘nonserious’. The related-to sense of the diminutive may also be a
generalization of the ‘member’ sense and ‘small-type-of’ sense.
6.4. The semantics of the Akan diminutive – a radial category
The discussions far has shown that the diminutive in Akan fits pretty well into the
universal radial category (Figure 1) in that the core sense of ‘child’ ultimately underlies all the
senses and extensions of the diminutive in Akan. However, the details of the radial category
representing the semantics of diminutive in Akan will need slight tweaking, especially with
regard to the metaphors that motivate the various senses of the diminutive. We suggest a
radial category specific to the semantics of the Akan diminutive (Figure 3), based on both
language internal and cross-linguistic evidence.
related-
related-to SEMANTIC
G, I VALUE IS SIZE
G young
CATEGORY CENTRALITY IS SIZE
small type-
type-of
insignificant
member
SOCIAL GROUPS ARE FAMILIES I M
WOMEN ARE FIT FOR
M I SMALL THINGS/
NONSERIOUS THINGS
child small femal
I
I I I
affection M G G
admi
admirati
ration
tion disdain
disdain nonserious
contempt
PRAGMATICS
Figure 2: Proposed structure for the semantics of the diminutive in Akan
7. Conclusion
The present paper has been concerned with the form, origin and meanings associated with
the diminutive in Akan. We have suggested that the diminutive affix -wa/-ba originates from
the noun ɔba ‘child’, an assertion which is consistent with earlier observations by researchers
such as Jurafsky [1996], Heine et al. [1991], etc. The senses of the diminutive form identified
in our corpus is varied, ranging from more concrete meanings such as small, young, feminine,
member to more evaluative ones like insignificant/nonserious, affection/admiration, and
disdain/contempt.
© Lexis 2011
Jurafsky’s Radial Category model allows for an adequate account of the different
categories of meanings as we are able to relate the diachronic meaning to the synchronic ones
as well as link the various synchronic meanings. The major language change mechanisms that
allow for such linkages are identified as metaphors and inferences. Crucially, we
acknowledge that even though the proposed semantic structure for the Akan diminutive, to a
large extent, fits into Jurafksy’s proposed universal structure for the semantics of the
diminutive, some adjustments will have to be made, taking into consideration certain
language internal specificities, to arrive at a workable structure for Akan.
We hope the analysis of the Akan diminutive, presented in this paper, following Heine et
al.’s [1991] examination of the Ewe diminutive will stimulate further research into the form
and meanings of diminutives in languages of the Volta Basin.
Bibliography
Akan dictionary: pilot project, Accra, Department of Linguistics, University of Ghana, 2006.
AMFO Nana Aba Appiah, “Recurrence Marking in Akan”, Pragmatics 15: 2/3, 2005: 151-
168.
AMFO Nana Aba Appiah, “Noun Phrase Conjunction in Akan: the Grammaticalization Path”,
Pragmatics 20:1, 2010: 27-41.
BOOIJ Geert, The grammar of words: an introduction to morphology, 2nd edition, Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 2007.
BRÉAL Michel, Semantics, Reprint, New York, Dover, 1964 [1897].
BYBEE Joan, Morphology: a study of the relation between meaning and form, Amsterdam,
John Benjamins, 1985.
BYBEE Joan, PERKINS Revere & PAGLIUCA William, The evolution of grammar: tense,
aspect and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1994.
CHAO Yuen Ren, Cantonese primer, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1947.
CHRISTALLER Johann G., Dictionary of the Asante and Fante language called Tshi (Twi), 2nd
edition, Basel, 1933.
COLERIDGE Hebert, “On diminutives in ‘LET’”, Transactions of the Philological Society,
1857: 93-115.
CONTINI-MORAVA Elle, “Noun classification in Swahili”, 1995 :
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/swahili/sect4-2.html#4-2.
DRESSLER Wolfgang U. & MERLINI BARBARESI Lavinia, Morphopragmatics: diminutives
and intensifiers in Italian, German and other languages. Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter,
1994.
FRAJZYNGIER Zygmunt, “The de dicto domain in language”, in TRAUGOTT Elizabeth C. &
HEINE Bernd (eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization, Vol 1, Amsterdam, John
Benjamins, 1991: 219-251.
GIVON Talmy, “Serial verbs and semantic change: Niger-Congo”, in LI Charles N. (ed.),
Word order and word order change, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1975: 47-112.
GREENBERG Joseph H., “Africa as a linguistic area”, in BASCOM William R. & HERSKOVITS
Melville J. (eds.), Continuity and change in African cultures. Chicago, University of
Chicago Press, 1959: 15-27.
GRICE Paul H., “Logic and conversation”, in COLE Peter & MORGAN Jerry L. (eds.), Syntax
and semantics, vol. 3: Speech acts, New York, Academic Press, 1975: 41-58.
© Lexis 2011
GRIMM Jacob, Deutsche Grammatik, 4 vols. Reprint, Hildesheim, Georg Olms

Verlagsbuchhandluch, 1967 [1890].
HEINE Bernd, CLAUDI Ulrike & HÜNNEMEYER Friederike, Grammaticalization: a
conceptual framework, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991.
HEINE Bernd & REH Mechthild, Grammaticalization and reanalysis in African languages,
Hamburg, Helmut Buske, 1984.
HOPPER Paul J. & TRAUGOTT Elizabeth C., Grammaticalization, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 2003.
JURAFSKY Daniel, “Universal tendencies in the semantics of the diminutive”, Language, 72:
3, 1996: 533-578.
LEWIS G. C., “On English Diminutives”, The Philological Museum 1, 1832: 679-686.
MATISOFF James, “The mother of all morphemes: augmentatives and diminutives in areal and
universal perspective”, in RATLIFF Martha & SCHILLER Eric (eds.), Papers from the first
annual meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistic Society, Tempe, AZ, 1991: 293-349.
RHODES Richard A., “Lexical hierarchies and Ojibwa noun derivation”, in TSOHATZIDIS
Savas L. (ed.), Meanings and prototypes, London, Rutledge, 1990: 151-158.
SCHNEIDER Klaus P., Diminutives in English, Tubingen, Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2003.
SHETTER William, “The Dutch diminutive”, Journal of English and German Philology 58,
1959: 75-90.
STRANG Barbara, Modern English structure, 2nd edition, London, Arnold, 1968.
SWEETSER Eve, From etymology to pragmatics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
1990.
TIMYAN Judith, A discourse-based grammar of Baule: the Kode dialect, PhD dissertation,
City University of New York, 1977.
TRAUGOTT Elizabeth C., “From propositional to textual and expressive meanings: some
semantic-pragmatic aspects of grammaticalization”, in LEHMANN Winfred & MALKIEL
Yakov (eds.), Perspectives on historical linguistics, Amsterdam, John Benjamins, 1982.
TRAUGOTT Elizabeth C. & KÖNIG Ekkehard, “The semantics and pragmatics of
grammaticalization revisited”, in TRAUGOTT Elizabeth C. & HEINE Bernd (eds.),
Approaches to grammaticalization, vol. 1, Amsterdam, John Benjamins, 1991.
WIERZBICKA Anna, “Diminutives and depreciatives: semantics representation for
derivational categories”, Quanderni di Semantica 5, 1984: 123-130.
© Lexis 2011

Diminutives and Augmentatives in The Languages of The World

Cargado por

Información del documento

Título original

Derechos de autor

Formatos disponibles

Compartir este documento

Compartir o incrustar documentos

Opciones para compartir

¿Le pareció útil este documento?

¿Este contenido es inapropiado?

Copyright:

Formatos disponibles

Diminutives and Augmentatives in The Languages of The World

Cargado por

Copyright:

Formatos disponibles

Lexis 6: “Diminutives and Augmentatives in the Languages of the World” 1

Diminutives and Augmentatives

Editors in charge of this issue:

P.J. Šafárik University, Košice, Slovakia

Nicola Grandi (University of Bologna, Italy)

Lívia Körtvélyessy (P.J. Šafárik University, Košice, Slovakia)

Lucia M. Tovena (Université Paris 7, France)

Ada Böhmerová (Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovak Republic)

Renewal and Innovation in the Emergence of Indo-European

Keywords: diminutive suffixes – augmentative suffixes – dynamic typology – areal

2. Stability and frequency in evaluative morphology

‘presence/absence of diminutives’ and ‘presence/absence of augmentatives’, four possible

(1) Type A: presence of diminutives; absence of augmentatives;

(2) Romance languages Portuguese type B

Germanic languages English type C (?)5

Slavonic languages Slovene type A (> B?)6

3. Augmentative suffixes in Indo-European languages of Europe

3.1. Romance languages and Greek

As we indicated before, in Romance languages (with the exception of Gallo-Romance

3.1.1. Agentive / pejorative > augmentative

(3) a. N[-anim]-PEJ > N[+ hum].M9

b. V-PEJ > N[+ hum].M

c. A-PEJ > N[+ hum].M

b. proper names of mask-characters and actors:

(5) Ancient Greek:

(6) a. original pejorative/caricatural meaning b. new augmentative meaning

3.1.2. Collective > augmentative

(7) 12 a. M.Gr. κεφλι > κεφλα

As to Romance forms, Kahane and Kahane-Toole [1948-1949: 154-155] state that

i] it forms only feminine nouns;

3.1.3. Relational > augmentative

(8) charta > chartācĕus (a, um)

3.2. Slavonic languages: locative > augmentative

(9)17 OCS sód(ŭ)-ište

(10) Rus. gúl’bišče

But in modern Slavonic languages such as Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croat, Russian,

(11) Blg. det(é)-ište

agentive / pejorative > augmentative

collective > augmentative

relational > augmentative

locative > augmentative

4. Diminutive suffixes in Indo-European languages of Europe

4.1. Romance languages

14) Latin Italian

(15) i. ‘Giovannino f. Giovani’23 [sic] and ‘Lanfra(n)chino […]di s(er)

iv. ‘Mannellino de’Mannelli’

(16) i. ‘Onde vedemo li parvuli desiderare massimamente un pomo; e poi, più

(17) κρη > κορ ον

4.3. Slavonic languages

‘child/young of…’ > diminutive

5. Diminutives and augmentatives in other linguistic families

(20) Shona mbudz(i)-ana

(21) Sotho monna-hadi

(22) Mal. anak kuntji

(23) Thai lûuk-mǔu

child-tiger / ’tiger cub’

(24) Mal. ibu kota

Data presented so far can be represented as follows:

(25) SEMANTIC ARCHETYPE OF SEMANTIC ARCHETYPE OF

So, a quick survey of evaluative morphology of some non-Indo-European languages seems to

7. Conclusions: why dynamic typology?

medio gallese”, Archivio Glottologico Italiano, 1998: 121-149.

MONTERMINI Fabio, Le système préfixal en Italien contemporain, Ph. D. Diss., University of

(17) κρη > κορ ον