Morphopragmatic View on the Ironic Use of Diminutives in Polish

Abstract

This paper focuses on the use of diminutives in Polish to express irony. The phenomenon is analyzed from the perspective of morphopragmatics (Dressler, Merlini Barbaresi 1994; Merlini Barbaresi 2015; Nagórko 2015) and reports on the results of a small-scale informant-based study, in which twelve respondents described their evaluation of the pragmatic meaning contributed by diminutives in three naturally-occurring spoken sentences. In most cases, there was a negative reaction to the diminutives as it was considered they represent an arrogant type of irony.