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User:Rigley/Diminutives in Spanish

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Diminutives in the Spanish language are highly productive and polysemous. They are formed by suffixing nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.[1]

Formation

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The complexity and versatility of Spanish diminutives is only paralleled in Modern Greek among the Western European languages. Academics have proposed that in both Greek and Spanish culture, diminutives fulfill an expectation to express positive feelings openly.[2] David Eddington identifies 13 categories of regular Spanish diminutive additions to the singular root, as added by speakers from Spain to loanwords.[1]

  1. -ito(s) (reduces base form) elefante > elefantito.
  2. -ita(s) (reduces base form) galleta > galletita.
  3. -ecito(s) (reduces base form) quieto > quietecito.
  4. -ecita(s) (reduces base form) piedra > piedrecita.
  5. -cito(s) pastor > pastorcito.
  6. -cita(s) joven > jovencita.
  7. -ito(s) normal > normalito.
  8. -ita(s) nariz > naricita.
  9. -ecito(s) pez > pececito.
  10. -ecita(s) flor > florecita.
  11. -itos (replaces pseudoplural morpheme) lejos > lejitos.
  12. -itas (replaces pseudoplural morpheme) garrapatas > garrapatitas.
  13. -cita(s) (replaces final vowel) patrona > patroncita.

Suffixes

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Some diminutive suffixes are more common in regions of Spain: for example, -ín of Asturias and -illo (also as -cillo, -ecillo, -ececillo) of Seville. Other diminutives are exclusive to certain Spanish dialects: for example, Bolivian Spanish has -ingo and -inga, and Chilean Spanish has -urro and -urri.[3] Speakers of Costa Rican Spanish, Cuban Spanish, and Colombian Spanish are more likely to use -ico (also as -cico, -ecico, -ececico).[3] However, -ico is restricted in Latin American compared to Peninsular Spanish: it will usually only occur after a /t/.[4] In Colombian Spanish, diminutives can be added to gerunds (corriendo > corriendito), prepositional phrases (junto > juntico), and they can be doubled (ahora > ahorita > ahoritica).[5]

Language contact

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Latin American countries under the influence of Brazilian Portuguese will more often use -iño.[3] Andean Spanish has influenced Quechua to borrow the use of the Spanish diminutive -itu where it can be used on native words (rumi > rumi-tu "little stone").[6] Speakers of Andean Spanish also use the Quechua diminutive -cha to indicate affection (Juana > Juanacha not Juanita).[7]

Meaning

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Through the process of grammaticalization, Spanish diminutives have come to acquire many more connotations than just small size. They can serve the role of the hedge, to increase the politeness of a sentence. For example, ¿Gusta un cafecito? (Would you like a coffee?) In Mexican Spanish, diminutives are further used as honorifics. Other connotations include:[8]

  • intensification: limpiecito (very clean) < limpio (clean)
  • approximation: carillo (somewhat expensive) < caro (expensive)
  • pejoration: peliculilla (bad movie) < película (movie)

The diminutive -uelo (also as -zuelo, - ezuelo, -ecezuelo) is pejorative, while -ete (also as -cete, -ecete) is humorous.[3] The diminutive is more frequently used in children's literature; in reference to children or objects associated with children; or when speaking to children.[9]

References

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  1. ^ a b Eddington, David (2002). "A comparison of two analogical models: Tilburg Memory-Based Learner versus Analogical Modeling". In Skousen, Royal; Lonsdale, Deryle; Parkinson, Dilworth (eds.). Analogical Modeling: An Exemplar-based Approach to Language. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 146. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  2. ^ Esreteh, Mahmood (2017). "A pragmatic analysis of diminutives in Palestinian society". International Journal of Language Studies. 11 (1): 46.
  3. ^ a b c d Bartens, Angela; Sandström, Niclas (2006). "Towards a description of Spanish and Italian diminutives within the NSM framework". In Peeters, Bert (ed.). Semantic Primes and Universal Grammar: Empirical Evidence from the Romance Languages. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 332.
  4. ^ Ignacio Hualde, José; Olarrea, Antxon; O'Rourke, Erin, eds. (2012). The Handbook of Hispanic Linguistics. John Wiley & Sons. p. 20.
  5. ^ Thompson, Gregory; Lamboy, Edwin (2012). "Bilingualism in the United States". Spanish in Bilingual and Multilingual Settings around the World. Brill. p. 249.
  6. ^ Aikhenvald, Alexandra (2014). "Language contact and areal linguistics". In Genetti, Carol (ed.). How Languages Work: An Introduction to Language and Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. p. 302.
  7. ^ Austin, Jennifer; Blume, María; Sánchez, Liliana (2015). Bilingualism in the Spanish-Speaking World. Cambridge University Press. p. 7.
  8. ^ Mendoza, Martha (2005). "Polite diminutives in Spanish: A matter of size?". In Lakoff, Robin; Ide, Sachiko (eds.). Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 164.
  9. ^ Goddard, Cliff; Wierzbicka, Anna (2008). "Universal human concepts as a basis for contrastive linguistic semantics". In de los Ángeles Gómez González, María; Mackenzie, J. Lachlan; González Álvarez, Elsa M. (eds.). Current Trends in Contrastive Linguistics: Functional and cognitive perspectives. John Benjamins. p. 218.

Further reading

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  • Melzi, G., & King, K. A. (2003). Spanish diminutives in mother–child conversations. Journal of Child Language, 30(2), 281-304.
  • Jurafsky, D. (1996). Universal tendencies in the semantics of the diminutive. Language, 533-578.
  • Travis, C. E. (2004). The ethnopragmatics of the diminutive in conversational Colombian Spanish. Intercultural pragmatics, 1(2), 249-274.
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