LL-L "Semantics" 2008.06.25 (03) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 25 June 2008 - Volume 03
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From: Ben J. Bloomgren <ben.j.bloomgren at gmail.com>
Subject: [LLL] Morphology? Lexicology? Semantics?

 Hei alle sammen (to borrow from another list I'm on [Sorry Reinhard])

Being that I am a linguistics-minded person, I've always wondered about the
semantic considerations and origins of the following scenarios:

Two people are walking down a street. One sees that a house finch has been
injured. This person says:

"Poor little bird(ie)!"

The other says:

"that's quite a blow for such a small bird."

Being that, at least in Norwegian, I've seen evidence of both adjectives
being present in Germanic languages, what's the origin of the terms small
and little? Where did we get the semantic differences between the so-called
poor, defenseless little ones and the simple size of the small ones?
Ben

•

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