Pejorative vs. Diminutive

[Philip S. LeSourd]

Arok,

Maliseet-Passamaquoddy has diminutive forms of both nouns and verbs, 
and it has pejorative forms of nouns. For the diminutive forms, you 
might take a look at my paper "Diminutive verb forms in Passamaquoddy" 
(IJAL 61:103-134, 1995). Diminutives of nouns are formed with /-is/, or 
more commonly with /-hs-is/: Pass. papsko`t 'stove' (stem /papskote-/, 
dim. papskote'hsis. Pejoratives are formed with /-hs/ without /-is/: 
papsko'tehs 'old stove'. The pejorative forms usually have some 
connotation of disrespect. For example, skita'pehs 'man (pej.) (stem 
/skitape-; cf. skita`p 'man') is used in an story to designate a man 
who is regarded as worthless because of his weak and timid 
nature--certainly the term would not be used of a respected elder! The 
/hs/ of the pej. ending is realized as /ss/ when it follows a schwa 
(written as "o" in Pass. orthography) that is epenthesized after a 
consonant-final stem: payosi'hkol 'bicycle', payosi'hkoloss 'old 
bicycle'. A final example, showing a plural pejorative form: ni'sonul 
papskote'hsol 'two old stoves'.

Phil LeSourd


Quoting Arok Wolvengrey <awolvengrey at FIRSTNATIONSUNIVERSITY.CA>:

> Greetings.  I'm working on a paper concerning diminutives and
> pejoratives - and in particular comparing Plains Cree (which lacks a
> distinct pejorative) and Saulteaux (which has one).  This has me
> wondering about the distribution of these forms across the Algonquian
> family.  I'm hoping some of you can comment on the distribution of
> diminutives versus pejoratives in as many Algonquian languages as
> possible.  In particular, how widespread are diminutive and
> pejorative forms?  Is the pejorative restricted just to Ojibwe or do
> other language have distinct pejoratives?  Thank you for any
> information you can share.
>