[Lingtyp] query: verbal diminutives

Sat Dec 15 15:39:07 UTC 2018

Dear Eva,

Given that your description of “verbal diminutives” includes the means of
reduplication and the meaning of tentativeness, reduplicated forms of
Mandarin verbs like those in (1-2) can be said to be relevant too (I have
glossed *tā*, which can mean ‘he, she, it’ in spoken Mandarin, by
conforming to the character-version of the examples). Chao (1968: 204) in
fact calls this verb reduplication the “tentative aspect” of verbs, though
Li & Thompson (1981: 232) term it the “delimitative aspect.”

(1) a.   我可以*试试*。

            Wǒ    kěyǐ         *shìshì*.

            I        can/may   try

            ‘I can give it a try.’

       b.   你可以去*问问*经理。

            Nǐ      kěyǐ          qù    *wènwèn*  jīnglǐ.

            you   can/may   go     ask           manager

            ‘You can go ask the manager.’

(2) a.   他应该*整理整理*自己的书架。

            Tā    yīnggāi    *zhěnglǐzhěnglǐ*    zìjǐ-de
shūjià.

            he     should     tidy                      self-Modifier.Marker
bookshelf

            ‘He should tidy his bookshelf.’

       b.   她应该*打扫打扫*自己的房间。

            Tā    yīnggāi       *dǎsǎodǎsǎo*     zìjǐ-de
fángjiān.

            she    should        sweep             self-Modifier.Marker
room

            ‘She should sweep her room.’

Chao, Yuen Ren. 1968. *A Grammar of Spoken Chinese*. Berkeley & Los
Angeles: University of California Press.

Li, Charles N. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1981. *Mandarin Chinese: A Functional
Reference Grammar*. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Best wishes,

Chao

On Sat, Dec 15, 2018 at 8:54 AM Elena Skribnik <skribnik at lmu.de> wrote:

> Dear Eva,
>
> yes, Russian also has diminutive forms for addressing babies at least for
> 'sleep' (спать > спатиньки) and 'eat' (кушать > кушенькать).
>
> But actually I would like to add (North) Mansi (known also as Vogul,
> <Ob-Ugric <Finno-Ugric) to your list. It has two diminutives: -kwe
> (positive) and -ris*j* (slightly pejorative): *ɑːɣi ‘girl, daughter’ >
> ɑːɣi-kwe **‘dear/little girl/daughter’, **piɣ ‘boy, son’  > piɣ-risʲ **‘(little)
> boy**’, **xum ‘man’ → xum-risʲ ‘weak, sickly man’. Both suffixes are also
> used with verbs to express positive emotional attitude, in case of **-risʲ
> with a shade of pity:*
>
> *sɑːw xɑːlj-ke-m puŋk pin-imɑ ljuːlj-i-kwe-t *
>
> * many birch-dim-poss.sg <http://dim-poss.sg><1sg head bow-cvb
> stand-prs-dim-3pl ‘Many lovely birches (of mine) stand bending their heads
> (and I like it).’ ɑkweːkw, wɑːɣ-tɑːl pɑt-əm-risj-ən grandmother
> strength-dercaritive become-mir.pst-dim-2sg ‘Grandmother, poor you became
> tired!’ *
>
> Best regards, Elena
>
>
> Am 15.12.18 um 12:38 schrieb Moshe Taube:
>
> One should also mention the diminutive forms of the infinitive 'sleep' in
> Ukrainian, спати, when addressing small children, e.g. спатки, спатоньки,
> спаточки, спатусі, спатуні, спатунечки, спатусічки. There are similar forms
> in other Slavic Languages. This has given *shlofinken* in Yiddish, dim.
> of *shlofn.*
>
> Moshe
>
> On Sat, Dec 15, 2018 at 11:57 AM Geoffrey Khan <gk101 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> Dear Eva,
>>
>> In some Neo-Aramaic dialects (Semitic) diminutives of verbs can be
>> expressed through a type of sound symbolism by raising the pitch, e.g.
>> ˁzaqzəq ‘to shiver (whole body)’ [flat, pharyngealized, low F2) vs. zaqzəq
>> ‘to throb (e.g. finger)’ [plain, higher F2]. See:
>>
>>  Khan, Geoffrey. 2016. *The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of the Assyrian
>> Christians of Urmi*. 4 vols. Studies in Semitic Languages and
>> Linguistics 86. Leiden-Boston: Brill, vol. 1, p.180.
>>
>>  Best wishes,
>>
>> Geoffrey Khan
>> On 14/12/2018 12:34, Lier, Eva van wrote:
>>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>>
>>
>> We are looking for examples and literature on verbal diminutives in and
>> across languages.
>>
>>
>>
>> Currently, we have some information on verbal diminutives in various
>> languages. Some examples include: German *hüsteln *(‘to cough lightly’),
>> Italian *dormicchiare *(‘to doze’), Croatian *grickati *(‘to nibble’),
>> Czech *tr**̌epotat *(‘to flutter’), Slovene *igri**čkati* (‘to play
>> around’), Russian *xaxan’kat *(‘to giggle’), Finnish *luk-ais-e *(‘skim
>> through (a text)’ < *luk- *‘read’), San’ani Arabic * tSaynai *(‘to
>> pretend not to hear’ < *Saanaj *‘to not hear’), Hebrew *kifcec *(‘to
>> jump around < *kafac *‘to jump’), Passamaquoddy *ə̆p**ə-ss-**ìn *(sit-
>> dim-animate.intransitive.2 < ‘sit down, little one!’), Huave *jujyuij *(‘to
>> shake gently’), and Lardil *laala* (‘to jab lightly’ < *latha* ‘to
>> spear’).
>>
>>
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>>
>> We will post a summary.
>>
>>
>>
>> Many thanks in advance!
>>
>>
>>
>> Eva van Lier, Jenny Audring, Sterre Leufkens
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Eva van Lier, PhD
>>
>> Department of Linguistics
>> University of Amsterdam
>>
>>
>>
>> www.uva.nl/profiel/e.h.vanlier
>>
>>
>>
>> P.C.Hoofthuis, kamer 6.45
>> Spuistraat 134, 1012 VB Amsterdam
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing listLingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.orghttp://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>
>> --
>> Geoffrey Khan
>> Regius Professor of Hebrew
>> University of Cambridge
>>
>> Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
>> Sidgwick Avenue
>> Cambridge CB3 9DA
>> UK
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> Professor Moshe Taube (Emeritus)
> Tamara and Saveli Grinberg Chair in Russian Studies
> Department of Linguistics / Department of Russian
> and East-European Studies
> The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
> Mt. Scopus 91905 Israel
>
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