A Typology of “Small” Evenutalities: Discontinuatives and Verbal Diminutives

Abstract

This article looks at two types of verbal derivations with a meaning of a lesser situation, which we have named discontinuatives and verbal diminutives. We show that these two types are of different diachronic origin: the former comes from verbal pluractionality, and the latter comes from nominal diminutives. We describe aspectual properties of the derivations and show how differences in distribution can be explained by the origin of the derivations.