What do doggie, seedling, and booklet have in common?

They are all diminutives, something that you probably use every day although you might not know what they were called.

Diminutives are modified words that convey a sense of smallness, endearment, or even belittlement (e.g., sweetie, kiddo, tallish).

It turns out diminutives are trendy. Why do we have Swifties and not Swiflets? Using the suffix “-ie” to change the word pig into the diminutive “piggie” is very popular, but using the suffix “-let” to turn pig into “piglet” is so yesterday!

Diminutives aren’t just limited to nouns, they occur in verbs as well, often called verbal diminutives. English doesn’t really have verbal diminutives, so let’s look at a few examples in other languages from a research paper (link below) to understand why and how they are used.

Verbal diminutives are used for three main reasons:

1. To reduce the quantity of an action: In the Ongen language Jarawara, joko means to push whereas jo.joko means to push a little.
2. To reduce the quality of an action: Expresses playfulness or hypocrisy. In the Austronesian language Ibatan, taynis means to cry whereas naysin-ta:-tanyis means to pretend to cry.
3. To add an affective meaning: Similar to decrease in quantity, but with an affectionate tone. In the isolate language Karok, ik rémyahtih means “the wind to be blowing” whereas ik némyahtihač means “the wind to be blowing a little.”

The paper introduces different strategies for implementing verbal diminutives. Here are two that I found interesting:

• Reduplication: Repeating the verb is one way to soften its meaning. I have actually used this myself in Mandarin. Kàn means to look whereas kàn kàn means to have a little look or to glance.
• Freestanding verbal marker: Adding a particle near the verb, often before it, is another way to soften its meaning. In the Austronesian language Toqabaquita, Nau ku sukani mataqi means I am a little sick with sukani acting as the diminutive.

Fun Fact: Augmentatives are the opposite of diminutives and convey a sense of being greater in some way (e.g., megastore, grandparent, overqualified).

Instead of bidding you adieu, let me end with reduplicative diminutive “bye-bye!”

Read More

Davis, C., (2023). The Morpho-Phonology of an English Diminutive. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), volume 8. Linguistic Society of America. Available from: https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v8i1.5497

Audring J, Leufkens S, van Lier E. Small events. Verbal diminutives in the languages of the world. Linguistic Typography at the Crossroads. 2021;1(1):223-56. Available from: https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2785-0943/13427.