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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. 81–113

Expressiveness and evaluation in Arabic

The singular development of the diminutive in Ḥassāniyya Arabic

| LACITO-CNRS | Universités Paris III | Inalco

Old Arabic had many expressive derived forms: firstly, the forms with radical repetition, consonant reduplication and/or vowel lengthening; secondly, the forms with prefixes, suffixes or infixes. Most of these formatives survived in the Arabic dialects, but Arabic scholars generally focus on diminutive noun forms (nominal and adjectival forms) named taṣġīr in Arabic. This article presents the rules of formation of the diminutive in the Ḥassāniyya Arabic dialect, in which this derivation applies to the whole lexicon, including verbal forms. The derivational morphology of the diminutive constitutes a kind of double derivation, characterized mainly by the infixation of -(a)y- – the position of which varies depending on the patterns and on the nature of the base lexeme. The article then analyzes the use and meaning of diminutives in context, studied within two corpora: a corpus of traditional tales and a corpus of courteous poems. The study of these corpora shows that in Ḥassāniyya, pejorative uses of the diminutive are as prominent as meliorative ones. Finally, the article discusses the “root-and-pattern” mode of formation in Arabic and the diverse derivations attested in Arabic dialects, comparing their values with those reported for other languages in the world. Evaluative morphology is shown to be particularly prevalent in Ḥassāniyya, and it is hypothesized that this correlates with the pragmatic function endorsed by the diminutive in this language. This function allows for both positive or negative interpretations of diminutive forms, depending on the context, so that diminutives can express a broad range of emotions.

Keywords: diminutive, Arabic, evaluative morphology, semantic, pragmatic
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Diminutive derivation in Ḥassāniyya
    • 2.1Triliteral root nouns and adjectives
      • 2.1.1Patterns without long vowels
      • 2.1.2Patterns containing a long vowel following the 2nd root consonant
      • 2.1.3Nouns and adjectives bearing a suffix
    • 2.2Quadriliteral root nouns and adjectives (or suchlike)
      • 2.2.1Patterns without long vowels
      • 2.2.2Patterns containing a long vowel following the 1st root consonant
      • 2.2.3Patterns containing a long vowel following the root final consonant
    • 2.3A specific case: aR1R2aR3 patterns
      • 2.3.1Adjectives of colors and bodily defects
      • 2.3.2Elatives
    • 2.4Verb forms and suchlike
      • 2.4.1Basic verbs and their reflexives: triradicals
      • 2.4.2Basic verbs and their reflexives: quadriradicals
      • 2.4.3Patterns where the 2nd root consonant is a geminate
      • 2.4.4Patterns bearing a prefix in s(t)a-
  • 3.Diminutives in Ḥassāniyya folktales
    • 3.1Lexicalized diminutives
    • 3.2Pejorative diminutives
      • 3.2.1Tale 1: ‘The ball of gum’
      • 3.2.2Tale 2: ‘The three deaf people’
      • 3.2.3Tale 4: ‘Deyloul and the two-humped she-camel’
      • 3.2.4Tale 8: ‘The young man and his cousin’
      • 3.2.5Tale 10: ‘The woman and the caravan’
      • 3.2.6Tale 11: ‘The woman and the gob of spit’
      • 3.2.7Tale 26: ‘The girl with the bracelet and the girl with the necklace’
    • 3.3Caritative diminutives
      • 3.3.1Tale 20: ‘The hedgehog and the ostrich’
      • 3.3.2Tale 21: ‘The bullock who gave birth’
      • 3.3.3Tale 22: ‘The little gazelle’
    • 3.4Other cases
      • 3.4.1Tale 13: ‘The woman who married a demon’
      • 3.4.2Tale 25: ‘The green bird’
      • 3.4.3Tale 27: ‘The sultan’s son who married a monkey’
    • 3.5Conclusion
  • 4.Diminutives in Ḥassāniyya poetry
    • 4.1Declarations of affection
    • 4.2Ambiguous declarations
    • 4.3Indirect declarations
    • 4.4Conclusion
  • 5.Arabic diminutives from a typological perspective
    • 5.1The “root and pattern” formation process
      • 5.1.1A process rare in the world’s languages
      • 5.1.2A more or less broad domain of application
      • 5.1.3Competition across derivations
    • 5.2The polysemy of diminutives
      • 5.2.1The Jurafsky model
      • 5.2.2The semantics of Arabic diminutives
      • 5.2.3The pragmatics of Arabic diminutives
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 19 April 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.00004.tai
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