The Acquisition of Diminutives
A cross-linguistic perspective
Editors
This cross-linguistic volume innovates research of the acquisition of diminutives in the inflecting-fusional languages Lithuanian, Russian, Croatian, Greek, Italian, Spanish, German and Dutch, the agglutinating languages Turkish, Hungarian and Finnish and in the introflecting Hebrew. These languages differ in various aspects relevant for the acquisition of diminutives and the development of pragmatics in early child language. Diminutive formation often tends to be the first pattern of word formation to emerge. The main reason for this seems to lie in the pragmatic functions of endearment, empathy, and sympathy, which make diminutives particularly appropriate for child-centred communication. A main topic of this book is the relation of emergence and early development between diminutives and other categories of word formation and inflection. The greater degree of morphological productivity and transparency, as well as phonological saliency, favors the use of diminutives. In this case diminutives may facilitate the acquisition of inflection.
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 43] 2007. vi, 352 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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IntroductionIneta Savickienė and Wolfgang U. Dressler | pp. 1–12
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1. Form and meaning of diminutives in Lithuanian child languageIneta Savickienė | pp. 13–41
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2. Diminutives in Russian at the early stages of acquisitionEkaterina Protassova and Maria D. Voeikova | pp. 43–72
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3. The acquisition of diminutives in CroatianMarijan Palmovic | pp. 73–88
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4. Diminutives in Greek child languageEvangelia Thomadaki and Ursula Stephany | pp. 89–123
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5. The role of diminutives in the acquisition of Italian morphologySabrina Noccetti, Anna De Marco, Livia Tonelli and Wolfgang U. Dressler | pp. 125–153
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6. The acquisition of diminutives in Spanish: a useful deviceVictoria Marrero, Carmen Aguirre and María José Albalá | pp. 155–181
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7. A longitudinal study of the acquisition of diminutives in DutchAgnita Souman and Steven Gillis | pp. 183–206
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8. Diminutives and hypocoristics in Austrian German (AG)Katharina Korecky-Kröll and Wolfgang U. Dressler | pp. 207–230
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9. Acquisition of diminutives in HungarianPéter Bodor and Virág Barcza | pp. 231–262
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10. Diminutives in Finnish child-directed and child speechKlaus Laalo | pp. 263–278
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11. The (scarcity of) diminutives in Turkish child languageF. Nihan Ketrez and Ayhan Aksu-Koç | pp. 279–293
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12. Acquiring diminutive structures and meanings in Hebrew: An experimental studyAnat Hora, Galit Ben-Zvi, Ronit Levie and Dorit Ravid | pp. 295–317
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13. Diminutives provide multiple benefits for language acquisitionVera Kempe, Patricia J. Brooks and Steven Gillis | pp. 319–342
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ConclusionsIneta Savickienė and Wolfgang U. Dressler | pp. 343–349
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Subject index | pp. 351–352
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2015. The acquisition of nominal determiners. In The Acquisition of Reference [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 15], ► pp. 25 ff.
Colston, Herbert L.
2019. How Language Makes Meaning,
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2017. Chapter 6. The early production of compounds in Lithuanian. In Nominal Compound Acquisition [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 61], ► pp. 145 ff.
Dressler, Wolfgang U.
2012. On the acquisition of inflectional morphology: introduction. Morphology 22:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Dressler, Wolfgang U., F. Nihan Ketrez & Marianne Kilani-Schoch
2017. Chapter 13. Discussion and outlook. In Nominal Compound Acquisition [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 61], ► pp. 287 ff.
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2021. Chapter 1. Introduction. In The Acquisition of Derivational Morphology [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 66], ► pp. 2 ff.
Forshaw, William
2022. Book Review: Veronica Mattes, Sabine Sommer-Lolei, Katharina Korecky-Kröll and Wolfgang U. Dressler (Eds.), The acquisition of derivational morphology: A cross-linguistic perspective. First Language 42:5 ► pp. 696 ff.
Kazakovskaya, Victoria & Maria D. Voeikova
2021. Chapter 7. Acquisition of derivational morphology in Russian. In The Acquisition of Derivational Morphology [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 66], ► pp. 170 ff.
Kempe, Vera & Patricia J. Brooks
2016. Miniature natural language learning in L2 acquisition research. In Cognitive Individual Differences in Second Language Processing and Acquisition [Bilingual Processing and Acquisition, 3], ► pp. 41 ff.
Ketrez, F. Nihan
2020. Word formation through derivation vs. compounding. In Morphological Complexity within and across Boundaries [Studies in Language Companion Series, 215], ► pp. 40 ff.
Kilani-Schoch, Marianne & Aris Xanthos
2021. Chapter 3. Derivational patterns in spontaneous data of French-speaking parent-child interactions before age three. In The Acquisition of Derivational Morphology [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 66], ► pp. 54 ff.
Laalo, Klaus & Reili Argus
Mattes, Veronika & Wolfgang U. Dressler
2021. Chapter 12. Conclusions. In The Acquisition of Derivational Morphology [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 66], ► pp. 290 ff.
Montrul, Silvina
2022. Heritage language speakers inform the critical period hypothesis for first and second language acquisition. In Generative SLA in the Age of Minimalism [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 67], ► pp. 265 ff.
Montrul, Silvina, Israel de la Fuente, Justin Davidson & Rebecca Foote
2013. The role of experience in the acquisition and production of diminutives and gender in Spanish: Evidence from L2 learners and heritage speakers. Second Language Research 29:1 ► pp. 87 ff.
Ponsonnet, Maïa
2018. A preliminary typology of emotional connotations in morphological diminutives and augmentatives. Studies in Language 42:1 ► pp. 17 ff.
Saturno, Jacopo
2020. Word formation in the earliest stages of L2 Polish. Language, Interaction and Acquisition 11:2 ► pp. 232 ff.
SAVICKIENĖ, INETA, VERA KEMPE & PATRICIA J. BROOKS
2009. Acquisition of gender agreement in Lithuanian: Exploring the effect of diminutive usage in an elicited production task. Journal of Child Language 36:3 ► pp. 477 ff.
Schwaiger, Sonja, Jutta Ransmayr, Katharina Korecky-Kröll, Sabine Sommer-Lolei & Wolfgang U. Dressler
2017. Scaling morphosemantic transparency/opacity: A corpus-linguistic and acquisitionist study of German diminutives. Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting 3:1 ► pp. 141 ff.
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2021. Chapter 5. Early phases of development of German derivational morphology. In The Acquisition of Derivational Morphology [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 66], ► pp. 110 ff.
Tribushinina, Elena & Elena Dubinkina
2012. Adjective production by Russian-speaking children with specific language impairment. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 26:6 ► pp. 554 ff.
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2023. Structural, Semantic, and Linguocultural Peculiarities of Ethno-Marked Diminutive Designations of a Person in English. Иностранные языки в высшей школе :3(62) ► pp. 87 ff.
[no author supplied]
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Subjects & Metadata
BIC Subject: CF – Linguistics
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General