<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">come to think of it, you might also include address inversion under this general sort of rubric -- though it's certainly not sarcastic (is it ironic?): like when a grandparent addresses a grandchild as '(little) grandparent' (grandpa, granny), or an uncle addresses a nephew as '(little) uncle'.<div><br></div><div>Leo Spitzer had a paper on this, Ueber Personenvertauschung in der Ammensprache (1920ies). More recently, Winfried Boeder looked at this as an areal phenomenon, I believe: but you'll have to ask him for details himself.</div><div><br></div><div>Frans<br><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On Nov 26, 2009, at 3:23 PM, Dolgor Guntsetseg wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"> <div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> oh sorry, I forgot such cases. I think that is possible. But not common. Unfortunately, I have no instances at the moment.<br> <br> BTW, we say to the children, mostly babies "How <b>ugly</b> is he/she!" or someting like that. But it is not negative, not sarcastic. It means "How sweet/cute is he/she".<br> <br> Gunne<br> <br> <br> David Gil schrieb: <blockquote cite="mid:4B0E87EB.4040709@eva.mpg.de" type="cite">Gunne, <br> <br> But are any of the Mongolian nicknames you are familiar with antonymic? That is to say, do any of them refer to a property that is the *opposite* of the one that the person possesses? <br> <br> David <br> <br> <blockquote type="cite">Dear all, <br> <br> in Mongolian, such nicknames are normal. Most people have a nickname, sometimes two or more. The way to give a nickname is differently, sometimes it concerns certain character, sometimes description of body parts and so on. And most of these nicknames are humorous. Here are some examples: <br> One friend of mine has the nickname "eyebrow". He got this nickname therefore, if he is drunken (just after two or three bottles beer), he has upside-down V eyebrows. <br> Another one has the nickname "muscle". Yes, he has big muscle, but that is not the reason. He always tries to show his muscles (if there are girls!) doing it quite casually. Unlike to Eyebrow, Mucscle does not like his nickname, so people do not use this nickname before his face. <br> <br> Gunne <br> </blockquote> <br> </blockquote> </div> </blockquote></div><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div><div><div><div>Frans Plank</div><div>Sprachwissenschaft</div><div>Universität Konstanz</div><div>78457 Konstanz</div><div>Germany</div><div><br></div><div>Tel +49 (0)7531 88 2656</div><div>Fax +49 (0)7531 88 4190</div><div>eMail <a href="mailto:frans.plank@uni-konstanz.de">frans.plank@uni-konstanz.de</a></div></div></div></div></div></div></span> </div><br></div></div></body></html>