[Lingtyp] query: verbal diminutives

Sat Dec 15 22:45:53 UTC 2018

I was on the verge of mentioning reduplication (in an Austronesian context)
when Chao beat me to it.
Many languages of Indonesia, especially Austronesian ones, use productive
reduplication of either a verb stem or an inflected verb to indicate a
diminutive-like sense (amongst other functions, including ones opposite to
).

Examples include jalan 'road, path, walk' and jalan-jalan 'go for a stroll'
(Indonesian); 'onu 'swim' and 'onu'onu 'splash about in play in shallow
water' (Tukang Besi).

I think this is a more widespread pattern in Austronesian languages
(half-remembered perusing of grammars rising up in my head), but I can't
speak from personal witness/experience.

-Mark

On Sun, 16 Dec 2018 at 02:39, Chao Li <chao.li at aya.yale.edu> wrote:

> 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
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lingtyp mailing list
>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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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