Talk:Diminutive
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[edit] Sanskrit
Sort of off-topic, but does anybody know the dimunutive suffix, if there is one, in Sanskrit? I'm thinking it's -ka, but I can't find anything conclusive. Specifically, is -ya(h) one? I'd appreciate if anyone could find this out--and add it to the article! —Feerique 22:34, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Pre-2005 comments
What is the direct opposite of "diminutive", in language? Enlargative? Increasimal? English doesn't seem to use a big version of words, but other languages do. —Michael Z.
- My OED doesn't offer "maximative"... Will this be for an encyclopedia article? Or more of a Wiktionary definition? --Wetman`
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- No plans to write about it at this time. It came to mind when discussing something completely unrelated. —Michael Z. 17:30, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)
- Augmentative --Schuetzm 18:22, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
[edit] English diminutives
From the introduction (3 June 2005): A diminutive is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object named, intimacy, or endearment.
I find the discussion of English diminutives a bit strange. From a selection of diminutives from the article (undies, movies, hottie, ambos, firies, perhaps with the exception of the Australian -za forms, which I'm unfamiliar with) I don't see how any of them have anything to do with the definition I quote. Slight? Smaal? Intimacy? Endearment? Furthermore, I see no mention of English diminutives along the lines of pig -> piglet - which is what I thought would be mentioned. I don't consider my quoted list (undies, etc.) as diminutives - they are merely short forms of the word (or do people consider "States" to be a diminutive for the USA?). True diminutives (like the ones from the germanic languages, and probably things like piglet) really carry a definite meaning difference compared to the normal form. As I see it "undies" is just another (albeit less formal) word for underwear. Forgive me if the only problem is my lack of knowledge about English.
I'll leave it to someone English to make appropriate changes. --(Alias at af.wp) 05:52, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It seems to me that the world "diminutive" is used in a broader and more vague sense when speaking about English than when referring to "non-english" languages. In the non-english languages I have some slight knowledge of (German, Latin, Czech, Polish, Russian) the basic meaning of diminution by diminutive suffixes is "smallness of the object named"; endearment, intimacy etc. is secondary and dependent on context. For example, the name of the last Roman emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire - Romulus Augustus - was diminuted to Romulus Augustulus (little Augustus) to emphasize the contrast between the grandness of the name and political insignificance of its bearer, in this case the connotation of diminution is derogatory, no endearment here.
I have edited the definition to be more applicable to non-english languages. Consequently it is now less applicable to English which does not have "true diminutives" formed in regular way, except for some words like your example of "piglet". The basic problem is how to reconcile the fact that this is English language Wikipedia, but the subject of the article is a general linguistic phenomenon for which the English does not provide very good examples. By the way, we do not have any examples of diminutives in languages which do not belong to the indo-european group.--Georgius 15:13, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Non-English languages with regular use of diminutive suffixes
Due to a technical error I have posted this edit without a summary, sorry. I hope it may be a step toward making the meaning of diminution more clear. See also Talk above. All the languages listed in this section up to now fit the description "regular use of diminutive suffixes". If someone adds a language in which diminutives are formed in some other way, the structure of the article would have to be changed accordingly. --Georgius 6 July 2005 15:36 (UTC)
I've forgotten too much since I learned Russian, so I don't dare to correct the article directly. Yet I am 100 % sure that кот means tomcat, i.e., male cat, and кошка means female cat. The word for kitten is котёнок. The suffix -ёнок is probably reserved solely to youngs of animals (лиса (fox) — лисёнок (fox puppy)), so it is not a regular diminutive suffix.
The suffixes -ка, -чка, -шка apply only to feminine nouns. Using вода as an example is rather misleading due to the other meaning of водка (and I am not sure that водка is really a diminutive of вода). A better example could be собака (dog) — собачка (little dog, doggie, but not puppy, that would be щенок), although it involves the change of the stem-ending "к" to "ч", which is a regular change shared with other Slavic languages. I can't now recall examples for the other suffixes.
The diminutive suffixes applicable to masculine nouns are -ик, -ек, -ок, and probably -ёк. Examles could be дом (house) — домик (little house), кусок (piece) — кусочек (little piece) (which is also another example of the "к"-to-"ч" change), круг (circle) — кружок (little circle) (featuring another stem-ending change: "г" to "ж").
At the moment, I can't recall the suffixes and devise examples for neuter nouns. — Ján Kľuka, 2005-08-14T22:35Z
- Mostly you are right. I've fixed it. "Vodka" (водка) is not a diminutive of "water" (вода). Interestingly, they have very similar diminutives вода→водичка, водка→водочка, it is a basis of one story about Russian joke.--81.17.152.207 20:37, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Bunny vs Rabbit
But how to describe Bunny and Rabbit? Is bunny a diminutive? 69.120.246.248 19:42, 30 September 2005 (UTC) (originally placed on article page, moved by —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 23:36, 30 September 2005 (UTC))
It strikes me as being like an English diminutive/hypocoristic, but (of course) not like a proper diminuitive. —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 23:36, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] -ling suffix in German is not used for the diminutive
The article claimed:
- There is another suffix (corresponding with English ling), that appears figuratively but that is not simply used to modify existing words:
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- -ling e.g. "Lehrling" for apprentice (though literally teachlet), and "Feigling" for coward (feig/feige cowardly + -ling = Feigling little cowardly [one])
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This is incorrect. The "-ling" suffix is not used to form diminutives. "Lehrling" means "one who is being teached" and is derived from "Lehre" (teaching). "Feigling" means "one who is cowardly". There is no diminution involved, and, tellingly, the German Wikipedia entry on the diminutive does not even mention the "-ling" suffix. Aragorn2 16:16, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Expert expansion
It looks to me that the article needs expansion by a knowledgeable person. The English section is woefully small (given this is the English Wikipedia). Also, the coverage of other languages is very uneven; French for instance should mention "-elle", shouldn't it? Non-European languages have little coverage; Japanese might be interesting. Does Chinese not have an equivalent because it doesn't use affixes, or is there a multi-word equivalent? I'll add an "expert" tag. -R. S. Shaw 19:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
- Shaw, you are taxing my brain, but -ette seems the vastly more used suffix to provide a diminutive. -elle is used, but it is a definite minority. This article attempts, necessarily so, only the broad strokes. If anything it attempts to cover too much ground. It can not possibly cover, to a thorough degree, all of these languages. I am not sure an expert is needed, but rather just additional edits. However, I would also favor deleting all of the individual language examples for many languages and summarize that most, if not all, langauages use dimiuitives. I will delete the tag, but will not be insistent should another editor think it needs to return. Storm Rider (talk) 08:26, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
- Shaw, the fact this is English wikipedia means that all the articles should be in English, not that English language should be in the middle of linguistic attention. The English diminutive system if fairly simple, barely used and not so interesting, compared, for example, to Bulgarian. Glamdring 17:21, 7 February 2007 (UTC)Glammy
[edit] Category change
I have changed the Category:Given names on this article to Category:Names; I am trying to group all the articles about naming - types of names, naming schemes, etc - there, while keeping all the articles on actual names in Category:Given names and Category:Surnames. --Brianyoumans 08:34, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The division of languages: English vs non-English
In terms of linguistics such a division (English vs non-English) is inconsistent - English is not very reasonable. So I suppose that the English is put as one of the Germanic languages, and a more scientific introduction is suggested.
Glamdring 17:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)Glammy
