[Lingtyp] Affectionate or sympathy marking

[Jess Tauber]

Yahgan (recently extinct genetic isolate from Tierra del Fuego) created
diminutives by prefixing yeka 'little, small' to nominals- for ex.
yek'oale:wa (from yeka wvle:wa) 'little boy' (v schwa, colon marks
tenseness of the vowel preceding it). One could also postpose kuru: 'like,
love' to create forms meaning 'beloved X' (as in some Biblical passages,
etc.). That's about it, SFAIK, for this language.

Jess Tauber

On Thu, Jan 12, 2023 at 8:57 AM Françoise Rose <francoise.rose at univ-lyon2.fr>
wrote:

> Dear Christian, dear all,
>
> Cross-linguistically, diminutives often take on those meanings (see
> Ponsonnet 2018).
>
> In the history of Mojeño, a former diminutive is now specialized in the
> expression of compassion (Rose 2018). Another diminutive has emerged, that
> is already seen to be used also with emotional functions.
>
> Best,
>
> Françoise
>
>
>
> Ponsonnet, Maïa. 2018. A preliminary typology of emotional connotations in
> morphological diminutives and augmentatives. *Studies in Language* 42(1).
> 17–50.
>
> (doi:10.1075/sl.00002.pon <https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.00002.pon>)
>
>
>
> Rose, Françoise. 2018. The rise and fall of Mojeño diminutives through the
> centuries. *Studies in Language* 42(1). 146–181.
>
>
>
> *De :* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> *De la part de*
> Christian Döhler
> *Envoyé :* jeudi 12 janvier 2023 11:10
> *À :* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Objet :* [Lingtyp] Affectionate or sympathy marking
>
>
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> I am looking for publications that address the difference between (1) and
> (2). In (2), the English adjective *poor* is used to signal the speaker's
> sympathy or affection towards the dog.
>
>    1. *The dog is waiting for its owner.*
>    2. *The poor dog is waiting for its owner.*
>
> While English (and my native German) does this by extending the meaning of
> the adjective *poor *(and *arm* in German), other languages have special
> words with only that meaning. For example, Komnzo *bana *is a postposed
> adjective that only conveys sympathy.
>
> *    ni bananzo namnzr karen.*
>     ni           bana=nzo        na\m/nzr                       kar=en
>     1NSG    SYMP=only     1PL:NPST:IPFV/stay    village=LOC
>     'Only we poor guys stay behind in the village' (subtext: 'while the
> others are going to the celebration in the neighbouring village')
>     (NSG = non-singular, SYMP = sympathy marker, NPST = nonpast)
>
> Yet other languages seem to have special verb morphology for this. Van
> Tongeren describes this for Suki (her PhD grammar will probably be
> available later this year).
>
> Pointers to more examples and publications of this are most welcome. I was
> googling this with keywords like "sympathy", "empathy", "affection", but
> with not much luck. So there might be a whole literature on this phenomenon
> under different terminology. If that's the case, then please excuse my
> ignorance.
>
> Very Best,
> Christian
>
>
> --
>
> Dr. Christian Döhler
>
> Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS)
>
> Schützenstraße 18
>
> 10117 Berlin
>
> Raum: 445
>
> Tel.: +49 30 20192 412
>
> https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9659-5920
>
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