Diminutives across Languages, Theoretical Frameworks and Linguistic Domains / / ed. by Stela Manova, Laura Grestenberger, Katharina Korecky-Kröll.

• HerausgeberIn: Grestenberger, Laura,; Korecky-Kröll, Katharina,; Manova, Stela,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter Mouton, , [2023]; 2024
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Series: Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] , 380
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (VI, 421 p.)

This volume addresses a number of issues in current morphological theory from the point of view of diminutive formation, such as the role of phonology in diminutives and hypocoristics and consequently its place in the overall architecture of grammar, i.e. phonology-first versus syntax/morphology-first theoretical analyses, diminutives in the L1 acquisition of typologically diverse languages, and the borrowing of non-diminutive morphology for the expression of diminutive meanings, among others. Among the peculiarities of diminutive morphology discussed are the relation between diminutives and mass nouns, the avoidance of diminutives in plural contexts in some languages, and the relatively frequent semantic bleaching and reanalysis of diminutive forms cross-linguistically. Special attention is paid to the debate on the head versus modifier status of diminutive affixes (corresponding to high versus low diminutives in alternative analyses), with data from spoken and sign languages. Overall, the volume addresses a number of topics that will be of interest to scholars of almost all linguistic subfields and per

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- 1 Introduction: Diminutives across languages, theoretical frameworks and linguistic domains -- Part I: Theoretical approaches to diminutive formation -- 2 On a low and a high position for diminutive non-manual markers in Italian Sign Language -- 3 Diminutive or singulative? The suffixes -in and -k in Russian -- 4 Slavic diminutive morphology: An interplay of scope, templates and paradigms -- 5 Diminutive formation in Spanish: Evidence for word morphology -- 6 The syllable as the basis for word formation: Evidence from diminutives, hypocoristics and clippings in English, Dutch, Afrikaans, Swedish and French -- Part II: Corpus-based and other empirical studies -- 7 The Swedish suffix -is and its place within evaluative morphology -- 8 Diminutives and number: Theoretical predictions and empirical evidence from German in Austria -- 9 Diminutive verbs in the Austrian language area: Morphological and semantic challenges -- 10 Challenges in analyzing Polish diminutives -- 11 Diminutives among other -k(a) words in colloquial Russian: Frequency and suffix variation -- Part III: Sociolinguistic, pragmatic and acquisitional studies -- 12 Borrowed or inspired? Komi diminutive under Russian influence -- 13 Acquisition of diminutives in Russian and Estonian from a typological perspective -- 14 Morphological richness and priority of pragmatics over semantics in Italian, Arabic, German and English diminutives -- 15 Diminutive variation in Austrian Standard German: A corpuslinguistic study -- 16 Gender discrepancies and evaluative gender shift: A cross-linguistic study within Distributed Morphology -- Index