[Lexicog] Pejorative suffixes

[Peter Kirk]

On 26/03/2005 18:45, David Tuggy wrote:

>...
>
>Peter Kirk wrote:
>
>
>
>><snip>
>>
>>Well, it is the "under" rather than the "-ling" which makes "underling"
>>pejorative. And "earthling" was not originally pejorative, although I
>>have seen it used as such. I have never seen "courtling".
>><snip>
>>
>>
>
>Peter is looking at this in a practical, somewhat simplistic way, as we
>can all hardly avoid doing. I've said similar things plenty of times
>myself, and was not wrong for doing so. Nonetheless...
>
>

Fair enough, I was being simplistic. My point was I suppose that
pejorativeness is not in some sense the meaning, or one of the senses,
of the suffix -ling. I would suggest that the basic sense is something
like "small or unimportant being with this characteristic" - I use
"being" rather than "person" because of "yearling". And somehow
pejorativeness comes along with this, as an association but not as a
core part of the meaning. On the other hand, some diminutive suffixes
tend to be linked to pejorative associations, and others to endearing
ones; -ling is in the former group. Is that fair? So, I suppose I am
trying to distinguish between denotation and connotation, but I'm not
sure how well this can be done.

--
Peter Kirk
peter at qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk at qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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