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Diminutive

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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. It is the opposite of an augmentative. In some languages diminutives are formed in a regular way by adding affixes to nouns and proper names; in English the alteration of meaning is often but not essentially conveyed through smaller size. English diminutives tend to be shorter and more colloquial than the basic form of the word, diminutives formed by adding affixes in other languages are often longer and not necessarily colloquial. Diminutives are often used for affection (see nickname and hypocoristic). In many languages the meaning of diminution can be translated "tiny" or "wee" and diminutives are used a lot when speaking to small children; adult people sometimes use diminutives when they express extreme tenderness and intimacy by behaving and talking like children (for example in sexual situations). (See Apocopation).

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English usage in general

Diminutives are common in most dialects of English. Terms such as "undies" for underwear and "movie" for "moving picture" are frequently heard terms in English. (Note that analogous expressions in languages in which diminution is a regular part of the grammar would not be called diminutives.) Common diminutives are:

Australian English

Australian English is known for its use of diminutives with the "-za" suffix applied to the shortened version of a person's name, especially one ending in -(r)r- plus vowel. Thus "Barry" becomes "Bazza" and "Gary" becomes "Gazza" though this is not routinely done with all names. Female names may also be shortened, such as "Sharon" becoming "Shazza" and Marion, "Mazza". This use of diminutives is also found in British English. As in other English speaking countries, the suffix -ie is also used for diminutives of given names, creating names such as Petey (from Peter), Dougie (Douglas), Johnny (Jonathan) and Robbie (Robert).

Australians also have a tendency to create diminutives of surnames. These more often employ the -o suffix, as in Johnno (for someone named Johnson) and Robbo (for someone named Roberts or Robertson).

Sometimes a diminutive lengthens the original word as seen in the ubiquitous American term "hottie" to denote sexually appealing (or "hot") young man or woman.

Diminutives aside from proper nouns

Many other words are replaced with diminutives in Australian English. Emergency-services personnel are often referred to as ambos and firies instead of "ambulance officers" and "firefighters". Similarly, medical professionals are frequently known as medicos.

Well-known bodies are also subject to this process, as with the Salvation Army being known as the Salvos or McDonalds being Macca's. Garbage collectors are almost universally known as garbos.

Non-English languages with regular use of diminutive suffixes

In many languages formation of diminutives by suffixes is a regular part of grammar. All nouns, not just proper nouns can be diminuted. The word "diminutive" is used in a narrower and less vague sense here than when referring to English. The basic meaning of diminution in these languages 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 emphasise 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.

Other Germanic languages

German

German features words such as "Häuschen" for "small house", "Würstchen" for "small sausage" and "Hündchen" for "small dog". The use of diminutives is quite different between the languages and dialects. The Alemannic dialects for example use the diminutive very often.

There are two suffixes that can be systematically applied in German:

Suffixation of the diminutive suffixes –chen and –lein to a finally stressed word stem causes umlaut of the stressed vowel.

In Bavarian and Austrian German, the -l or -erl suffix can replace almost any usual German diminutive. For example, the normal word for "girl" in German is "Mädchen", and while Mädchen is still used frequently in Austrian German, a more colloquial "cute" usage would be "Mädl" or "Madl". It is very common for Austrians to replace the normal "Bisschen" ("a little" as in "Can I have a little more?") with "Bissl". This has become a very distinctive feature of Austrian German.

In East Frisian Low Saxon, -je, -tje, and -pje are used as a diminutive suffix (e.g. huis becomes huisje (little house); boom becomes boompje (little tree)). Some words have a slightly different suffix, even though the diminutive always ends with -je. For example, man becomes mannetje (little man).

In other varieties of West Low Saxon, spoken in the east of the Netherlands, diminutives occasionally use the umlaut in combination with the suffixes -gie(n). Examples:

  • man - mānnegie (EN: man - little man)
  • kom - kōmmegie (EN: bowl - little bowl)
Compare this with the German suffix -chen

In North Low Saxon, the diminutive is rarely used, (except maybe Gronings. The same goes for the North Germanic languages.

In Dutch, the diminutive is formed by adding one of the suffixes-je, tje, -pje, -etje,-kje, -ke, eke, -ske or -ie to the noun in question.

In Dutch, not only nouns can get a diminutive but also adjectives and adverbs. The noun however will remain able to be used together with (in)definite articles.In this case -s is added. Some examples;

  • adjective:
  • *groen (green)- "groentje" (lit. little green" meaning rookie'')
  • adverbs:
  • *groen (green) - "groentjes" (lit.little green meaning ''greenish")
  • *net (tidy) - "netjes" (lit little tidy meaning "tidy-ish")
  • *zacht (soft) - "zachtjes" (lit.little soft meaning "softly")
Some nouns have two different diminutives, each with a different meaning.
  • bloem (flower) - bloempje (lit. "small/little flower") meaning little/small flower)
  • bloem (flower) - bloemetje (lit. "small/little flower" meaning bouquet)
There are also a number of words that excist solely in a diminutive form.
  • zeepaardje (lit. "small/little seahorse" meaning seahorse')
  • sneeuwklokje (lit. "small/little snowdrop" meaning snowdrop')
When used to refer to time, the Dutch diminutive form refers to wether the person in question found it pleasant or not.

  • In de rij heb ik een uur moeten wachten voordat ik aan de beurt was.
(I had to wait an hour in line before it was my turn.)
  • Na een uurtje gezellig gekletst te hebben met haar vriend ging het meisje naar huis.
(After having talked to her boyfriend for an little hour the girl went home.)

Scots

In Scots diminutives are used much more frequently than in English. The diminutive is formed by the suffix -ie, -ock, -ockie or –ag.

Examples include:

Romance languages

Latin

In the Latin language the diminutive is formed also by suffixes. Similarly, the diminutive of gladius (sword) is gladiolus, a plant whose leaves look like small swords.

Italian

In Italian, the diminutive for people is usually expressed by changing masculine (usually -o) to -ino and femenine (usually -a) to -ina, whereas for inanimate objects, the pattern is -o to -etto and -a to -etta. -ello and -ella also exist, though often as the result of the italicization of words from other Romance languages. The new word is then pluralized as a word in its own right. The animate/inanimate rule is extremely loose. Examples which have made it into English are mostly culinary, like linguine (named for its resemblance to little tongues ("lingue", in Italian)), and bruschetta. The diminution is often figurative: an operetta is similar to an opera, but dealing with less serious topics. "Signorina" means "Miss", whereas "signorino" would be a pejorative belittling of a man. The augmentative also exists: -one.

Romanian

Romanian uses suffixes to create diminutives, most of these suffixes being of Latin or Slavic origin.

Feminine

Masculine

Spanish

More detail at Spanish nouns.

In Spanish, -o and -a become -ito and -ita, respectively — as in "perro" (dog) and "perrito" (puppy). In other instances, the suffix "-illo" or "illa" is used. A well-known example of this is "tortilla". Words ending in -e or consonant take -cito/a or -ecito/a, as in big "grande" → "grandecito/a" and cross "cruz" → "crucecita". There are irregular forms, like foot "pie" → "piececito", and sometimes two forms exist with different uses: hand "mano" gives the expected "manita" but also "manecilla" "clock hand". There is at least one common duplicated diminutive: small "chico" → "chiquito" → "chiquitito".

Names can be somewhat more arbitrary. A list of common (and not so common) names and their diminutive forms:

Portuguese

In Portuguese, the most common diminutives are formed with the suffixes "-(z)inho", "-(z)inha", "-(z)ito" and "-(z)ita", which replace the masculine and feminine endings "-o" and "-a", respectively. The forms with "z" are normally added to words that end in stressed vowels, such as "café", "cafezinho"; "pouco", "pouquinho" (a very small amount). Popular diminutives may have different forms: "e.g.", "poucochinho". Diminutives of nouns are widely used in colloquial language. Occasionally, they may also be applied to adverbs ("e.g.", "só"/"sozinho", both meaning alone), adjectives ("e.g.", "tonto"/"tontinho", meaning "silly" and "a bit silly") and even verbs ("'e.g.", "correndo"/"correndinho", both meaning "running", but the latter having a sense of endearment).

French

French diminutives usually end in -ette, such as fillette (young girl) or courgette (small marrow = zucchini) and this frequently carries over into English as well. While informal French often produces diminutive effects simply by cutting a word in half (McDo from McDonalds, fixs from fixations 'ski bindings'), the ending -oche is sometimes used. For example, cinoche (ciné) and MacDoche (McDonalds).

Slavic languages

Czech

In Czech diminutives are formed by suffixes, as in other Slavic languages. Every noun has a grammatically correct diminutive form, regardless of the sense it makes. This is sometimes used for comic effect, for example diminuting the world for "giant" to mean "little giant". Diminutives can be diminuted further by adding another diminutive suffix. E.g.: "Júlie" (Julia), "Julka" (little Julia), "Júlinka" (very little Julia). Czech diminutives can also express familiarity, meliorative, and affection. Hence, "Julka" may well mean "our", "cute" or "beloved" Julia.

Example: "k-diminutives"

/-ka/ (feminine noun forms)

/-ko/ (neuter noun forms)

/-ek/ (masculine noun forms)

/-ík/

Other common diminutive suffixes are /-inka/, /-enka/, /-ečka/, /-ička/, /-ul-/, /-unka/, /-íček/, /-ínek/ etc. Note the various stem deformations, such as palatalization, vowel shortening or vowel lengthening.

Russian

Russian has a wide variety of diminutive forms for names, to the point that for non-Russian speakers it can be difficult to connect a nickname to the original. Diminutive forms for nouns are usually distinguished with an -ik, -ok (-yok) (masculine gender), -chk-/-shk- and -on’k-/-en’k- suffixes. For example, "voda" (вода;, "water") becomes "vodichka" (водичка, "little water"), "kot" (кот, "male cat") becomes "kotik" (kotik), "koshka" (кошка, "female cat") becomes "koshechka" (кошечка), "solntse" (солнце, "sun", neuter) becomes "solnyshko" (солнышко). Often there are many diminutive forms: "mama" (мама, "mom") becomes "mamochka" (мамочка), "mamen’ka" (маменька), etc.

Adjectives and adverbs can also have diminutive forms with suffix -en’k-: "siniy" (синий, "blue") becomes "sinen’kiy" (синенький), "bystro" (быстро, "quickly") becomes "bystren’ko" (быстренько).

Names can be somewhat more arbitrary, but still follow a loose pattern. A list of common names and their diminutive forms:

Some names can also be modified with a -ka ending to add a further level of familiarity, but are not normally used for adults who are not family members.

Polish

in Polish there are a lot of affixes which help create diminutive. Some of them are -cia, -unia, -enka, -lka, -pka for feminine nouns and -ciek, -uń, -eńki, -lki, -pki for masculine (and many, many others). For example:

Other language families

Persian

The most frequently used Persian diminutives are -cheh (چه-) and -ak (ک-). Other less used ones are -izeh and -zheh.

Scottish Gaelic

In Scottish Gaelic diminutives are used much more frequently than in English.

The most common diminutives are:

-(e)ag - A feminine diminutive;
-(e)an - A masculine diminutive.
e.g.

Turkish

See also Turkish grammar.
Turkish diminutive suffixes are -cik and -cegiz (-cegiz):

Esperanto

See also Esperanto word formation.
Esperanto has a single diminutive suffix, -et.

Arabic

In Modern Standard Arabic the usual diminuitive pattern is Fu`ayL (CuCayC), with or without the feminine -ah added.

 

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