[Lexicog] Pejorative suffixes

[John Roberts]

Marc Fryd said:

> Is the following an adequate summary of the ongoing discussion?
> a) <-ish> carries a degree of imprecision, or approximation, which
> <-like/ly>,
> for instance, do not convey, expressing rather relative similarity of form
> (like-ness).
> b)"mannish" and "manlike" may equally express negative or positive values,
> in
> accordance with the cultural adequacy of bestowing the quality they convey
> upon
> the recipient in question. However, it is probably the case that
> "imprecision"
> (<-ish>)is more likely to be used in negative contexts and "resemblance"
> (<-like,-ly>) in neutral contexts.


Not quite. Your summary does not take account of the following senses of
"-ish":

Urdang (1982) 1. 'Belonging to': Finnish, Swedish, English
AHD: 1.a. Of the nationality of; for example, Swedish, Finnish.
Ron Moe: 2. n:n. When added to a noun that refers to a citizen of a country,
the resulting noun refers to the language spoken by the citizens
(Swede:Swedish).

Both Urdang and AHD have nationality as a distinctive sense of "-ish" but
not language while Ron has language as a distinctive sense but not
nationality. They are not necessarily the same. British and Scottish
describe nationalities but not languages while Flemish and Kurdish describe
languages but not nationalities. The terms Finnish, Swedish and English just
happen to do both.

John Roberts




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