[Lexicog] Pejorative suffixes

[David Tuggy]

It is equally true, whether or not one views it as a result of metaphor
(or perhaps of metonymy), that "small is dear," and "small is cute",
while "big is offensive" and "big is ugly". ("Get your big foot out of
my way," "what cute little ducklings", and so on.) These extensions of
meaning tend, in many languages, to produce positive senses/connotations
for diminutives and negative ones for the corresponding augmentatives.

In Nahuatl the suffix -tzi:n is strongly positive and means either
"diminutive/endearing" or "honorific". The two coincide in many cases,
e.g. in the almost invariable -tzi:n on stems like co:l 'grandfather' or
ilama 'old woman'. In words like piltzi:ntli "(little) baby" the
honorific note is not strong and may be absent, as is the case with the
diminutive meaning in words like tla:katzi:ntli 'lord, highly respected
man'.  The suffix -po:l (much less common in usage) means something is
big but often clumsy, useless, or otherwise despicable. I would expect
that similar things could be reported for languages from many language
families around the world.

So small and big are both, both bad and good. Similarly paradoxical
meaning  associations show up elsewhere too. Nahuatl has them with
reduplication, for instance. English has them with "old" and somewhat
less with "new/young/recent". It's interesting....

--David Tuggy

Ron Moe wrote:

> One of the semantic phenomena that we must grapple with in
> lexicography is extended metaphor. If we can define a diminutive
> suffix as "a small X", then it would be subject to the extended
> metaphor "Good is big, bad is small." From these metaphors we have
> such expressions as "small minded" and "big hearted." It would stand
> to reason, then, that any diminutive could be pejorative. A good
> dictionary should note whenever an idiom or derivative is based on an
> extended metaphor. I also recommend that we include an appendix of
> metaphors:
>
> Being bad is being small:
> feel small, little courage, little imagination, small fry, small
> minded, smalltime, small wonder, weakling
>
> Ron Moe
>
>     -----Original Message-----
>     *From:* Fritz Goerling [mailto:Fritz_Goerling at sil.org]
>     *Sent:* Saturday, March 26, 2005 11:18 AM
>     *To:* lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
>     *Subject:* RE: [Lexicog] Pejorative suffixes
>
>
>     >     On 26/03/2005 17:19, Fritz Goerling wrote:
>     >
>     >     > Fritz Goerling wrote:
>     >     >
>     >     >  >How productive is pejorative -ling in English?
>     >     > >
>     >     > Peter Kirk:
>     >     >
>     >     > I don't think this is pejorative in English either, it is
>     simply a
>     >     > diminutive.
>     >     > ...
>     >     >
>     >     > (FG)   How about courtling, earthling, underling?
>     >     >
>     >
>     >     (PK)
>     >     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".
>     >
>     >     (FG) How about hireling, princeling?
>     >
>      (PK)
>     "Hireling" is simply someone who is hired. "Princeling" is a
>     diminutive,
>     not in physical size of course but in importance. Of course any
>     individual diminutive word can become pejorative, but the primary
>     meaning is certainly diminutive, like its cognate German -lein.
>
>
>         (FG)  Well, how about weakling?
>                 BTW, not each -ling in German is pejorative but can be
>         endearing (like darling = Liebling).
>                 Maybe we can agree that from a diminutive either an
>         endearing or a pejorative term can
>                 develop.
>
>
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