Cover not available
Article published In:
Morphology and emotions across the world's languages
Edited by Maïa Ponsonnet and Marine Vuillermet
[Studies in Language 42:1] 2018
► pp. 17–50

A preliminary typology of emotional connotations in morphological diminutives and augmentatives

 | The University of Western Australia | ARC Centre of excellence for the Dynamics of Language | The Australian National University | The University of Sydney
This article presents a preliminary typology of emotional connotations in evaluative morphology, starting with diminutives and augmentatives. I inventory the emotional meanings and connotations found in a sample of nineteen languages for diminutives, and nine languages plus a few additional regional studies for augmentatives. Given the small size of the samples, this typology can only remain preliminary, but it does highlight a number of points. Across languages and continents, diminutives can express positive emotions such as compassion, love and admiration, as well as negative emotions such as contempt. The emotional connotations of augmentatives are more limited, but display a blend of positive and negative emotions including contempt and repulsion, admiration and respect, endearment and compassion. Diminutives and augmentatives do not contrast sharply with respect to emotional valence (positive or negative), but while diminutives are anchored in intimacy, the emotions conveyed by augmentatives more often relate to broader social contexts.
Keywords: evaluative morphology, diminutive, augmentative, expressivity, emotions
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Defining diminutives and augmentatives
    • 1.2Emotions
    • 1.3Aims, methods and limitations
    • 1.4Outline of the paper
  • 2.Diminutives
    • 2.1Data
    • 2.2‘Mild’ and ‘serious’ emotions
    • 2.3Disapproval and contempt
    • 2.4Compassion
    • 2.5Romantic and/or sexually oriented love
    • 2.6Admiration and respect
    • 2.7Comfort and control in personal routines
    • 2.8Emotional coloring
    • 2.9Conclusions
  • 3.Augmentatives
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Negative values of augmentatives
      • 3.2.1Contempt and repulsion with respect to excess
      • 3.2.2Danger, threat and fear
    • 3.3Positive values of augmentatives
      • 3.3.1Admiration for high social status
      • 3.3.2Endearment and compassion
    • 3.4Conclusions
  • 4.Comparing emotional connotations of augmentatives and diminutives
    • 4.1Positive vs negative contrast?
    • 4.2Overlaps and contrasts in emotional values
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 April 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.00002.pon
References (62)
References
Agbetsoamedo, Yvonne & Paul Kofi Agbedor. 2015. Ewe. In Nicola Grandi & Lívia Körtvélyessy (eds.), Edinburgh handbook on evaluative morphology, 472–479. Edinburgh: Edinbugh University Press.Google Scholar
Alonso, Amado. 1996. Noció, emoción, acción y fantasía en los diminutivos. Estudios lingüísticos: Temas españoles, 104–126. Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar
Ameka, Felix. 2012. Ewe: Its grammatical constructions and illocutionary devices. Munich: Lincom.Google Scholar
Appah, Clement KI & Nana Aba Appiah Amfo. 2011. The morphopragmatics of the diminutive morpheme (-bal-wa) in Akan. Lexis. Diminutives and augmentatives in the languages of the world 61. 85–103.Google Scholar
Bernal, Elisenda. 2015. Catalan. In Nicola Grandi & Lívia Körtvélyessy (eds.), Edinburgh handbook on evaluative morphology, 205–215. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Blevins, Juliette. 2001. Nhanda. An Aboriginal language of Western Australia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar
Böhmerová, Ada. 2011. Suffixal diminutives and augmentatives in Slovak. A systematic view with some cross-linguistic considerations. Generic. Lexis. Diminutives and augmentatives in the languages of the world.Google Scholar
Bowler, Margit. 2015. Warlpiri evaluative morphology. In Nicola Grandi & Lívia Körtvélyessy (eds.), Edinburgh handbook on evaluative morphology, 438–447. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Bulatova, Nadezhda. 2015. Emocional’no-ocenočnye suffiksy imennyx i glagol’nyx form v evenkijskom jazyke. In Nicolai Kazanskij (ed.), Acta Linguistica Petropolitana. Transactions of the Institute for Linguistic Studies, vol. 111, 60–77. Saint Petersburg: Nauka.Google Scholar
Chamoreau, Claudine. 2012. Spanish diminutive markers -ito/-ita in Mesoamerican languages. A challenge for acceptance of gender distinction. In Martine Vanhove, Thomas Stolz, Aina Urdze & Hitomi Otsuka (eds.), Morphologies in contact, 71–90. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.Google Scholar
Contini-Morava, Ellen. 2002. (What) do noun class markers mean? In Wallis Reid, Ricardo Otheguy & Nancy Stern (eds.), Signal, meaning and message: Perspectives on sign-based linguistics, 3–64. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Creissels, Denis. 1999. Origine et évolution des diminutifs et augmentatifs dans quelques langues africaines. Silexicales 21. 51–57.Google Scholar
Donaldson, Tamsin. 1980. Ngiyambaa. The language of the Wanggaybuwan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dressler, Wolfgang U. & Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi. 1994. Morphopragmatics. Diminutives and intensifiers in Italian, German and other languages. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fortescue, Michael. 1983. A comparative manual of affixes for the Inuit dialects of Greenland, Canada, and Alaska. Copenhagen: Meddelelser om Grønland.Google Scholar
Fortin, Antonio. 2011. The morphology and semantics of expressive affixes. Oxford: University of Oxford PhD Thesis.Google Scholar
Fradin, Bernard. 2003. Le traitement de la suffixation en -et. Langages 37(152). 51–77. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
François, Alexandre. 2001. Contraintes de structures et liberté dans l’organisation du discours. Une description du mwotlap, langue océanienne du Vanuatu. Paris: Université Paris-IV Sorbonne PhD Thesis.Google Scholar
. 2015. Quand la morphologie n’encode pas les émotions : de quelques langues du Vanuatu. Lyon, 29–30 avril 2015: Workshop MorphÉm.Google Scholar
Gaarder, Bruce A. 1966. Los llamados diminutivos y aumentativos en el español de México. Publications of the Modern Language Association 811. 585–595. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grandi, Nicola. 2002. Development and spread of augmentative suffixes in the Mediterranean area. In Paolo Ramat & Thomas Stolz (eds.), Mediterranean languages, 171–190. Bochum: Dr Brockmeyer University Press.Google Scholar
Grandi, Nicola & Lívia Körtvélyessy. 2015a. Introduction: Why evaluative morphology. In Nicola Grandi & Lívia Körtvélyessy (eds.), The handbook of evaluative morphology, 3–20. Edinburgh: Edinbugh University Press.Google Scholar
. 2015b. Edinburgh handbook on evaluative morphology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Guillaume, Antoine. The grammatical expression of emotions in Tacana and other Takanan languages. In Maïa Ponsonnet & Marine Vuillermet (eds.), Morphology and emotions across the world’s languages. Special issue of Studies in Language 42(1).
Heine, Bernd, Claudi, Ulrike & Friederike Hünnemeyer. 1991. Grammaticalization: Conceptual framework. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jurafsky, Daniel. 1988. In the semantics of the Cantonese changed tone. Berkeley Linguistic Society 141. 304–318. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1996. Universal tendencies in the semantics of the diminutive. Language 72(3). 533–578. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Körtvélyessy, Lívia. 2015. Evaluative morphology and language universals. In Nicola Grandi & Lívia Körtvélyessy (eds.), The Edinburgh handbook of evalualtive morphology. Edinburgh: Edinbugh University Press.Google Scholar
Kouwenberg, Silvia & Darlene LaCharité. 2001. The iconic interpretations of reduplication: Issues in the study of reduplication in Caribbean Creole languages. European Journal of English Studies 5(1). 59–80. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Launey, Michel. 1981. Introduction à la langue et à la littérature astèques, Vol. 1: Grammaire. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
LeSourd, Philip S. 1995. Verb forms in Passamaquoddy. International Journal of American Linguistics 61(1). 103–134. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mahieu, Marc-Antoine. 2015. Les émotions et la morphologie dérivationnelle de l’inuktitut. Lyon, 29–30 avril 2015: Workshop MorphÉm.Google Scholar
Matisoff, James A. 1992. The mother of all morphemes. Augmentatives and diminutives in areal and universal perspective. Papers from the first annual meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistic Society, 293–349. Tempe.Google Scholar
Merlan, Francesca. 1983. Ngalakan grammar, texts and vocabulary. Canberra: Pacific linguistics, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Morgenstern, Aliyah & Alexis Michaud. 2007. La réduplication : universaux iconiques et valeurs en systèmes. Faits de langues. La réduplication 291. 117–127. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mutz, Katrin. 2015. Evaluative morphology in a diachronic perspective. In Nicola Grandi & Lívia Körtvélyessy (eds.), The Edinburgh handbook of evalualtive morphology, 140–154. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Myers, Fred R. 1986. Pintupi country, Pintupi self: Sentiment, place and politics among Western Desert aborigines. Canberra, Washington: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Namugala, Samuel. 2014. Diminutive and augmentative functions of some Luganda noun class. Trondheim: Norwegian University of Science and Technology PhD Thesis.Google Scholar
Németh, Boglárka & Anna Sőrés. 2018. Evaluative morphology in the verbal domain. Complex verbs suffixed by -kVdik in Hungarian. In Maïa Ponsonnet & Marine Vuillermet (eds.), Morphology and emotions across the world’s languages. Special issue of Studies in Language 42(1).Google Scholar
Ottaviano, Ida de. 1980. Textos Tacana. Riberalta: Instituto Linguistico de Verano.Google Scholar
Pakendorf, Brigitte. 2016. Lamunkhin Even evaluative morphology in cross-linguistic comparison. Morphology 27(2).123–158. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Ponsonnet, Maïa. 2018. Expressive values of reduplication in Barunga Kriol (northern Australia). In Maïa Ponsonnet & Marine Vuillermet (eds.), Morphology and emotions across the world’s languages. Special issue of Studies in Language 42(1).Google Scholar
. 2014a. The language of emotions: The case of Dalabon (Australia). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2014b. Dalabon emotion glossary (second draft, June 2014). [URL].
Ponsonnet, Maïa & Nicholas Evans. 2015. Diminutives in Dalabon. In Nicola Grandi & Lívia Körtvélyessy (eds.), Edinburgh handbook on evaluative morphology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Potts, Christopher. 2007. The expressive dimension. Theoretical Linguistics 33(2). 165–198. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reynoso Noverón, Jeanett. 2001. Los diminituvos en el español. Un estudio de dialectología comparada. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.Google Scholar
Rose, Françoise. 2018. Rise and fall of Mojeño diminutives across centuries. In Maïa Ponsonnet & Marine Vuillermet (eds.), Morphology and emotions across the world’s languages. Special issue of Studies in Language 42(1).Google Scholar
Rudolph, Elisabeth. 1990. Portuguese diminutives as special indicators of emotions. Graze Linguistische Studien 33(4). 253–266.Google Scholar
Sapir, Edward. 1921. Language: an introduction to the study of speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.Google Scholar
Savickienė, Ineta & Wolfgang U. Dressler. 2007. The acquisition of diminutives: A cross-linguistic perspective. Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 431. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shetter, William Z. 1959. The Dutch diminutive. The Journal of English and German Philology 58(1). 75–90.Google Scholar
Sifianou, Maria. 1992. The use of diminutives in expressing politeness: Modern Greek versus English. Journal of Pragmatics 171. 155–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taine-Cheikh, Catherine. 2018. Expressiveness and evaluation in Arabic: The singular development of the diminutive in Ḥassāniyya Arabic. In Maïa Ponsonnet & Marine Vuillermet (eds.), Morphology and emotions across the world’s languages. Special issue of Studies in Language 42(1).Google Scholar
. 1988. Les diminutifs dans le dialecte arabe de Mauritanie. Al Wasît 21. 89–118.Google Scholar
Tersis, Nicole. 2008. Forme et sens des mots du tunumiisit, Lexicque inuit du Groenland oriental. Paris: Peeters.Google Scholar
. 2013. Diminutifs en tunumiisut (Groenland oriental). Paris, Villejuif, January 2013: Research group Fédération typologique “Les émotions.”Google Scholar
Travis, Catherine E. 2004. The ethnopragmatics of the diminutive in conversational Colombian Spanish. Intercultural Pragmatics 1(2). 249–274. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vanhove, Martine & Mohamed-Tahir Hamid Ahmed. 2018. Diminutives and augmentatives in Beja (North-Cushitic). In Maïa Ponsonnet & Marine Vuillermet (eds.), Morphology and emotions across the world’s languages. Special issue of Studies in Language 42(1).Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1984. Diminutives and depreciatives: Semantic representation for derivational category. Quaderni di Semantica 51. 123–130.Google Scholar
Wilkins, David. 1989. Mparntwe Arrernte (Aranda): Studies in the structure and semantics of grammar. Canberra: Australian National University PhD Thesis.Google Scholar
Zariquiey, Roberto. 2018. The expression of emotions in Kakataibo (Panoan). In Maïa Ponsonnet & Marine Vuillermet (eds.), Morphology and emotions across the world’s languages. Special issue of Studies in Language 42(1).Google Scholar
Cited by (21)

Cited by 21 other publications

Blokland, Rogier
2024. Small-scale comments on Uralic and other evaluatives. In Értelem és érzelem [Studia uralo-altaica, 57], ► pp. 63 ff. DOI logo
Dobrushina, Nina
2024. Evaluation between grammar and context. Diachronica DOI logo
Hirik, Erkan & Hamiye Gül
2024. Türkçede Büyütme Kategorisi. Söylem Filoloji Dergisi 9:1 ► pp. 312 ff. DOI logo
Kempe, Vera, Mitsuhiko Ota & Sonja Schaeffler
2024. Does child-directed speech facilitate language development in all domains? A study space analysis of the existing evidence. Developmental Review 72 ► pp. 101121 ff. DOI logo
Nassenstein, Nico, Alice Mitchell & Andrea Hollington
2024. Introduction. In Anthropological Linguistics [Culture and Language Use, 23], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Reyes, G. T.
2024. Nice for Whom? A Dangerous, Not-So-Nice, Critical Race Love Letter. Education Sciences 14:5 ► pp. 508 ff. DOI logo
Seel, Laura & Nico Nassenstein
2024. “Show your feelings!”. In Anthropological Linguistics [Culture and Language Use, 23], ► pp. 331 ff. DOI logo
Odiegwu, Nancy Chiagolum & Jesús Romero-Trillo
2023. Morphopragmatic analysis of reduplication in Nigerian Pidgin (Naija). Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 38:2 ► pp. 263 ff. DOI logo
Pato, Enrique
2023. El uso del diminutivo como estrategia de subjetivización en la "General estoria". Revista de Historia de la Lengua Española :18 ► pp. 69 ff. DOI logo
Polak, Paulina
2023. Morphopragmatic View on the Ironic Use of Diminutives in Polish. Studies in Polish Linguistics 18:2 ► pp. 69 ff. DOI logo
Hinojosa, José A., Juan Haro, Rocío Calvillo-Torres, Lucía González-Arias, Claudia Poch & Pilar Ferré
2022. I want it small or, rather, give me a bunch: the role of evaluative morphology on the assessment of the emotional properties of words. Cognition and Emotion 36:6 ► pp. 1203 ff. DOI logo
Nourzaei, Maryam
2021. Definiteness Marking from Evaluative Morphology in Balochi: Internal Variation and Diachronic Pathway. Iranian Studies 54:5-6 ► pp. 699 ff. DOI logo
Nourzaei, Maryam
2023. The history of the K-suffix -ū in Shirazi. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 33:3 ► pp. 589 ff. DOI logo
Nourzaei, Maryam
2023. Diachronic Development of the K-suffixes: Evidence from Classical New Persian, Contemporary Written Persian, and Contemporary Spoken Persian. Iranian Studies 56:1 ► pp. 115 ff. DOI logo
Vanhaverbeke, Margot & Renata Enghels
2021. Diminutive constructions inbilingual speech. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 35 ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo
Wang, Xiaolei, Jiandong Lu, Terence T. Ow, Yuqiang Feng & Luning Liu
2021. Understanding the emotional and informational influence on customer knowledge contribution through quantitative content analysis. Information & Management 58:2 ► pp. 103426 ff. DOI logo
Fernández-Vallejo, Ana M.
2020. Comunicar emociones en Facebook. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics 33:1 ► pp. 55 ff. DOI logo
Franco, Ludovico, Benedetta Baldi & Leonardo M. Savoia
2020. Collectivizers in Italian (and beyond). The interplay between collectivizing and evaluating morphology (and the Div paradox). Studia Linguistica 74:1 ► pp. 2 ff. DOI logo
Procházka, Stephan
2019. The Diminutive in the Arabic Dialect of Tunis. In Studies on Arabic Dialectology and Sociolinguistics, DOI logo
Seraku, Tohru & Takako Akiha
2019. Poi in Japanese Wakamono Kotoba ‘youth language’: A view from attenuation at the speech-act dimension. Lingua 224 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2020. Linguistic Fundamentals for Natural Language Processing II [Synthesis Lectures on Human Language Technologies, ], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 december 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.