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<p class="MsoNormal">Dear colleagues,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We are looking for examples and literature on verbal diminutives in and across languages.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Currently, we have some information on verbal diminutives in various languages. Some examples include: German
<i>hüsteln </i>(‘to cough lightly’), Italian <i>dormicchiare </i>(‘to doze’), Croatian
<i>grickati </i>(‘to nibble’), Czech <i>tr</i><i>̌epotat </i>(‘to flutter’),<i> </i>
Slovene <i>igri</i><i>čkati</i> (‘to play around’), Russian <i>xaxan’kat </i>(‘to giggle’), Finnish
<i>luk-ais-e </i>(‘skim through (a text)’ < <i>luk- </i>‘read’), San’ani Arabic <i>
tSaynai </i>(‘to pretend not to hear’ < <i>Saanaj </i>‘to not hear’), Hebrew <i>kifcec
</i>(‘to jump around < <i>kafac </i>‘to jump’), Passamaquoddy <i>ə̆p</i><i>ə-ss-</i><i>ìn
</i>(sit-<span style="font-variant:small-caps">dim-animate.intransitive.2</span> < ‘sit down, little one!’), Huave
<i>jujyuij </i>(‘to shake gently’), and Lardil<span style="color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">
<i>laala</i> (‘to jab lightly’ < <i>latha</i> ‘to spear’).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These examples show that the morphological patterns that we subsume under “verbal diminutives” fulfill a number of semantic functions, such as iterative/frequentative/durative, low intensity, distributivity, and attenuation. These functions
may extend (pragmatically) to playfulness, tentativeness, pretense/irrealis/fictiveness, trivialization, aimlessness, affection/intimacy, and contempt/pejorativeness. In some cases (see Passamaquoddy above), verbal diminutive marking implies that an event
participant is a child or an otherwise small entity.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Also, verbal diminutives can be expressed by various morphological means, including affixation, reduplication, and non-concatenative morphology. In some cases, the verbal diminutive markers are related to nominal diminutives; in other cases,
they seem to have different origins, such as spatial markers. The productivity of verbal diminutive formation apparently differs between languages.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We would be grateful for any references and/or examples of verbal diminutives in the language(s) of your expertise, including their semantics/pragmatics, formation, (diachronic) origin, productivity and usage frequency.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We will post a summary.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Many thanks in advance!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="NL"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="NL">Eva van Lier, Jenny Audring, Sterre Leufkens<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="NL"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="NL"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="NL"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Eva van Lier, PhD<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Department of Linguistics<br>
University of Amsterdam<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.uva.nl/profiel/e.h.vanlier">www.uva.nl/profiel/e.h.vanlier</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="NL">P.C.Hoofthuis, kamer 6.45<br>
Spuistraat 134, 1012 VB Amsterdam<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="NL"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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