Diminutive Nouns Research Articles

Disorders of word formation in adolescents under operation for congenital heart defects

Literary data on the speech status of children with congenital heart defects are presented. The results of a study of word-formation function in adolescents after radial correction of septal congenital heart defects are described. Purpose. To assess the speech status of adolescents operated on for congenital heart defects using the example of word formation. Material and methods. A prospective study of the word-formation function of 37 adolescents in the early postoperative period after radical correction of septal heart defects under artificial circulation was conducted at the Research Institute of Complex Problems of Cardiovascular Diseases. Results. The most difficult task was the formation of diminutive nouns. The respondents completed this task with a score of 55.31 %. Teenagers coped better with tasks on the formation of different categories of adjectives. Score of the task of forming relative adjectives — 60.54 %. The children coped with the task of forming possessive adjectives even more successfully — by 63.24 %. The respondents were most successful in completing the task of forming qualitative adjectives — by 81.44 %. Conclusion. Despite successful cardiac surgery, patients require interdisciplinary monitoring in the postoperative period.

NOUN STRESS IN UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE: DIACHRONY OF CODIFICATION (BASED ON "THE FIRST READER FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS" BY A. KRUSHELNYTSKYI, O. POPOVYCH, B. LEPKYI (1918))

The article traces the peculiarities of noun stress in "The First Reader for Public Schools" (1918) by A. Krushelnytskyi, O. Popovych, and B. Lepkyi, which has not been the subject of linguistic research. This publication introduces the textbook by the mentioned authors into the academic discourse. The mentioned textbook was used in practice in primary and secondary Ukrainian-language education in western Ukraine during the time of Austria-Hungary. The norm for all levels of language at that time was the "Malorusko-German Dictionary" by E. Zhelekhivskyi and S. Nedielskyi (1886). Based on this lexicographical work, a phonetic orthography, known as "zhelekhivka," was formed, which the Ministry of Education recognized as official for Ukrainian education. The process of standardizing literary stress in the Ukrainian language is still ongoing today. Therefore, analyzing stresses in a school textbook published over a hundred years ago can help shed light on certain accentuation patterns that have evolved over time. Furthermore, the collected empirical material will enable researchers to substantiate the choice of one or another normative stress pattern. During the research process, it was discovered that the primary stress patterns in "The First Reader" align with contemporary normative stress patterns found in various paper and electronic dictionaries. The article also analyzed non-standard stress patterns in current usage. In the stress patterns of first-declension nouns, the authors of "The First Reader" systematically employ dactylic stress, which is a characteristic feature of the Ukrainian language. However, within the framework of the current accentuation norms, this dactylic stress is often considered incorrect in many cases. Some first-declension nouns exhibit stress patterns influenced by dialectal environments and the influence of the Polish and German languages. This is especially relevant when it comes to the stress patterns of borrowed words. In "The First Reader," one can also observe the form-distinguishing and content-distinguishing functions of stress, which differ from contemporary accentuation models. Among the second-declension nouns, stress patterns with an emphasized prefix were identified, which could partially enrich the normative basis of contemporary literary language. Additionally, a group of diminutive nouns with consistently stressed final syllables was identified. "The First Reader" does not feature deviant stress patterns among third and fourth declension nouns. The findings can be used in further scientific research, lexicographic practice, or in the educational process.

Features of Mass Speech Culture in Social Networks

The purpose of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of speech and behavioural stereotypes of mass speech culture in social networks. The research methodology. The typological method is applied, which has contributed to identification of the peculiarities of mass speech culture development in social networks. The method of systemic analysis and synthesis, the descriptive method and the method of cultural analysis have enabled the consideration of social networks in the context of the modern media space, with their inherent originality. The scientific novelty. Peculiarities of the speech culture in social networks are studied; the specifics of Internet communication as a unique means of global communications are considered; the peculiarities of influence of the language of Internet communications on the development of modern mass speech culture are revealed. Conclusions. Internet slang produced by users has now become widespread in the general consumer vocabulary, and the game conditions of the virtual space contribute to the approach of communication to the game, which at the level of mass speech culture is manifested in the tendency to the manner of spoken language even on serious websites. The study has found that media texts of social networks, due to a unique combination of verbal and visual expressiveness, have a tangible impact on the user. The analysis of contemporary content of social networks confirms the trend of depopularisation of diminutives (diminutive nouns), transfer of foreign (primarily English) words and phrases in Ukrainian graphics, integration of foreign vocabulary into the media text in the form of barbarisms, introduction of elements of thieves' slang, computer jargon, and specific Internet vocabulary in media texts (as a stylistic game), manifestation of original humour in accordance with personal speech qualifications.
 Key words: new media, mass media culture, Internet communication, social networks, content, media texts.

Translating Latvian diminutive nouns into Estonian

The study focuses on the translation of Latvian diminutives into Estonian. In both Latvian and Estonian, the main goal of diminutives is to express smallness, tenderness or affection, but in some cases also pejorative meaning (Erelt et al. 1995; Vulāne 2015; Kasik 2015; Kalnača 2015). Estonian translators of contemporary Latvian literature have stated that diminutive formations are widespread in the Latvian language, and that they do not translate all Latvian diminutives into corresponding Estonian equivalents. The purpose of this study is to analyse diminutives in three Latvian works of fiction: how many diminutives occur, how many of them are translated into Estonian, and how they have been translated. In Latvian, only diminutive nouns with suffixes -(t)iņ-, and -īt- were selected from the material. The research results show that Latvian diminutives are not very often translated into Estonian, and the main equivalent of the diminutive is frequently a base word. However, in the cases when the diminutive is translated, a variety of approaches can be observed.

Floating tone noun class prefixes in Mada (Nigeria)

Mada [mda], a Plateau language spoken in central Nigeria, has many seemingly inexplicable tone alternations that occur between the singular and plural forms of nouns. These alternations find straightforward and reasonable explanations if one assumes the existence of underlying representations that include floating tone prefixes and certain nouns with toneless stems. Another fascinating aspect of Mada addressed in this paper is that despite there being no other evidence of consonant-tone interaction in the language, there is a direct correlation between the proposed floating tone singular prefixes and the surface realizations of the singular diminutive prefix: diminutive nouns with floating (L)- prefixes take only və̄-, and those with floating (H)- prefixes take only fə́-.

Affixation as a derivational process in Tiv

The study of morphology is of the essence in every language in order to understand the processes involved in word creation and inflection. Affixation in Tiv has been studied by many researchers, however, more attention is given to the inflectional aspect of Affixation in the language. Although, a well-cited book in Tiv treats both inflectional and derivational morphology in the language, this book does not study Affixation with a theoretical back up. In addition to that, the book features a misrepresentation about the derivational processes in Tiv, hence, the paper set to examine Affixation as a word-derivation process in Tiv using Hockett’s theory of Item-and–Arrangement and Item-and-Process. The researchers collected data for the study through primary and secondary sources. The study presents the following findings: nouns are derived from verbs by attaching the prefix {m-} to roots, formation of diminutive nouns is by adding the prefix {an-} to roots, and the derivation of nouns from adjectives is done through prefixation and suffixation of roots with {m-} and {-n} respectively. The study contributes to the existing literature on Tiv morphology by discovering the derivational processes in Tiv and removing the formation of agentive nouns from the derivational processes in the language in order to correct the misrepresentation of the agentive formation process as part of derivational Affixation.

Greek Diminutives in Gothic

AbstractInvestigation of the outcomes of Greek diminutive nouns in the Gothic New Testament reveals a variety of translation strategies. The Gothic Version does not automatically carry over a word’s diminutive character. Most cases of Greek diminutives translated with Gothic diminutives are part of a Gothic pattern, centred on children. In other cases, the usual range of Gothic translation decisions are found, ranging from subtle discriminations to elisions of distinction.

Вокативни форми на роднинските названия в народнопесенния фолклор от Ксантийско (дн. Гърция)

The paper presents the kinship names as vocatives, appearing in folk songs from the Xanthi region excerpted from two collections (Pomaki. The Muslims of Rodopi (1995) by P. Theoharidis and Dry me, Burn me… (2012) by E. Ushev). Various ways of addressing the mother, the daughter, the son and other relatives are presented in the research comprising the kinship names of persons with blood and non-blood relations. The excerpted material is dominated by the female part, as the greatest variety and frequency of use is observed in vocatives to the mother, which confirms the thesis of the cult of the Great Mother and of the strong respect towards motherhood in the region’s past. The research covers the majority of traditional kinship names in the region, including diminutive nouns typical of the Rhodope dialects. Various vocatives with interesting meanings are detected in kinship names of persons with non-blood relations, which complete the picture of the common Bulgarian kinship names.

Diminutive Nouns in Miami-Illinois

Almost all Algonquian languages use diminutive suffixes on nouns and, in some languages, on verbs as well. The formation of diminutive nouns in Miami-Illinois is very complex, and much more irregular than that seen in the most closely related Algonquian languages. I discuss here patterns of diminutive noun formation in Miami-Illinois; besides comparing them to those found in its sister languages when relevant, I demonstrate which forms are unpredictable, and discuss philological problems of phonemic interpretation posed by the original records.

The Lemmatisation of Nouns in Tshivenda Dictionaries

Tshivenda is one of the official languages of South Africa, mostly spoken in Limpopo Province at Vhembe District. From 1994, when the Republic of South Africa became a democratic government, speakers of the Tshivenda language spread to all nine provinces of South Africa. Tshivenda has different word categories, like nouns, verbs, adjectives and many more. When words are looked up in dictionaries, one should know what types of categories are given, e.g. their spelling, pronunciation and meaning. If this is not clearly represented one would not be able to use such a dictionary. This paper seeks to investigate how nouns are lemmatised in Tshivenda dictionaries. Attention is given to word and stem lemmatisation. It also looks at the lemmatisation of singular and plural nouns, and the lemmatisation of deverbative and diminutive nouns. This will be accomplished by analysing published Tshivenda dictionaries in circulation.

Overgeneralization in the processing of complex forms in Valley Zapotec child language

Models of language learning and processing differ in their level of emphasis on the storage of individual meaningful units versus combinations of meaningful units. While there is evidence for the storage of larger stretches of speech, a separate issue is how much such stored forms contribute to processing, as compared to morphologically simpler forms. We examine the acquisition of one aspect of the phonology of Valley Zapotec: complementarity of segmental length based on subsegmental features: vowels before fortis consonants are short (VCː), and vowels before lenis consonants are long (VːC). This complementarity is found for fortis consonants in morphologically simple forms with final stress (simple nouns, verbs with full subject noun), but not in morphologically complex forms with a final unstressed syllable (diminutive nouns, verbs with pronominal subject clitic). During one period of development, Zapotec-learning children overgeneralize the complementarity from morphologically simple to morphologically complex forms (with u-shaped learning likely). The child’s processing of complex forms in language production is based more on simple forms than on the complex forms themselves. We identify five possible explanations of these results. Insofar as combinations of morphemes are stored at this young age, they are relatively ineffective at influencing processing during language production.

Diminutive Nouns and Verbs in Slovene Compared to Their English Equivalents

Protistavna analiza samostalniskih in glagolskih manjsalnic v slovenscini in anglescini jasno kaže, da sta tvorba in raba manjsalnic v slovenscini vezani na oblikoslovne znacilnosti samostalnikov in glagolov ter posledicno njihove morfolosko-leksemske lastnosti, medtem ko ostaja težisce manjsalniske tvorbe in rabe v anglescini vezano na skladnjo oziroma skladenjsko-pomensko rabo dolocenega leksema. V vseh jezikih je manjsalnost ena osnovnih pomenotvornih prvin, ki jo lahko izražamo predvsem morfolosko, kot na primer v slovenscini, ali predvsem skladenjsko, kot na primer v anglescini. Kot pomenotvorna prvina samostalniska manjsalnost v slovenscini pomembno vpliva tudi na razvoj terminologije – v tem primeru se manjsalnica kot jezikovna metafora pomensko osamosvoji in postane strokovni termin; tega pojava anglescina prakticno ne pozna.

О стилској вредности именичких деминутива у Андрићевим приповеткама

This paper discusses the style value of diminutive nouns in Ivo Andrić’s short stories between 1925 and 1941. Andrić’s style is characterised by the absence of expressives, although one notices a number of diminutive nouns the writer commonly utilized in nominal function. While the use of some diminutives achieves a certain stylistic and poetic function — it also reveals subtext and more accurately represents the psychology of his characters, in particular the psychological conditions and characteristics of the main character. Furthermore, this paper indicates the reactions and actions of the characters and describes their interior.

Second Language Learning Benefits from Similarity in Word Endings: Evidence from Russian

Diminutive derivations (e.g., froggy, bootie) constitute morphophonologically similar clusters of words in child‐directed speech and serve as low‐level schema for learning morphological regularities. Previous research has demonstrated that by regularizing noun endings, diminutives (e.g., Russian: domik, svechka) facilitate word‐boundary identification and the acquisition of inflectional morphology. In this study, adult native speakers of English (N = 77) were exposed to diminutive and simplex transparently gender‐marked nouns instantiating Russian case‐marking and adjective‐noun gender‐agreement patterns, over six 1‐hour language‐learning sessions. They were subsequently tested on their ability to extend grammatical patterns to new items and vocabulary recall. Learners showed equivalent learning of the trained phrases containing diminutive and simplex nouns but were more accurate in generalizing morphological patterns to diminutive nouns. Furthermore, learners showed a diminutive advantage in vocabulary retention. By increasing the invariant parts of words, diminutive derivations may reduce the amount of phonological material to be memorized and, subsequently, enhance word learning.

Cognitive Predictors of Generalization of Russian Grammatical Gender Categories

This study explores how learners generalize grammatical categories such as noun gender. Adult native English speakers with no prior knowledge of Russian (N = 47, ages 17–55 years) were trained to categorize Russian masculine and feminine diminutive nouns according to gender. The training set was morphophonologically homogeneous due to similarities induced by the diminutive suffixes. Generalization was tested using simplex and diminutive nouns with trained or novel stems. Age, familiarity with other second languages, nonverbal intelligence, and verbal working memory capacity were used to predict performance. Compared to trained diminutives, learners showed equally high accuracy in gender categorization of transparent simplex nouns with trained stems and diminutive nouns with novel stems. Accuracy dropped significantly for nontransparent simplex nouns with trained stems and transparent simplex nouns with novel stems. Verbal working memory capacity predicted gender categorization of nontransparent nouns and vocabulary recall, whereas age, nonverbal intelligence, and prior experience with languages with transparent gender categories affected performance in nouns containing at least some degree of gender transparency. The findings indicate that pattern‐based and memory‐based learning processes coexist in adult learners. However, age affected performance on pattern‐based processes but not memory‐based processes like rote memorization of vocabulary and gender categorization of nontransparent nouns. This finding is interpreted in the context of proposals concerning the role of declarative and procedural memory in L2 learning.

Elicited production of case-marking in Russian and Serbian children: Are diminutive nouns easier to inflect?

Two experiments used an elicited speech-production paradigm to explore children's acquisition of noun case-marking inflections. Russian ( N = 24, 2;10— 4;6 years) and Serbian children ( N = 24, 2;10—4;11) were asked to produce prepositional phrases requiring genitive or dative inflections of masculine and feminine, familiar and novel, simplex ( vaza [Ru/Se: vase]) and diminutive (Ru: vazochka, Se: vazica) nouns. Across languages, children produced fewer case-marking errors with familiar compared to novel nouns, and diminutive compared to simplex nouns. The diminutive advantage occurred despite a markedly lower frequency of diminutive usage in Serbian than Russian child-directed speech. This suggests that in acquiring richly inflected languages, children most readily construct low-level generalizations of inflectional changes applying to morpho-phonologically homogeneous clusters of words like diminutives.

Nominale Diminutiva bei Komposita im Schwäbischen: ein „Words and Rules“-Ansatz

This paper investigates the occurrence of diminutive nouns in the non-head position of noun-noun compounds in the Swabian dialect (e. g. Draibleskuchen ‘currant cake’) in the light of current morphological theory; specifically with regard to the debate around symbolic versus connectionist models of the mental lexicon. Symbolic “dual mechanism” models assume that morphologically complex forms that are irregular are stored in the lexicon and retrieved as whole words, whereas complex forms that are regular are derived by productive symbolic rules. Thus, irregular inflection can serve as input to derivational and compounding rules within the lexicon but regular inflection cannot, as the rules deriving regular inflectional forms operate after derivation and compounding have taken place. Connectionist models, rather than appealing to the traditional notion of linguistic rules, claim that inflectional systems can be represented in terms of associative networks. In these models, regularity is an effect of the statistical dominance of stored complex forms. For these “single mechanism” models the representation of morphologically complex forms is the same for both regular and irregular morphology. Such an approach assumes that all inflectional forms can potentially serve as input to derivational and compounding rules, irrespective of whether they are regular or irregular. Swabian diminutives are theoretically interesting in that their plural form, which is produced by changing the vowel of the diminutive suffix (e. g. Kendle - Kendla ‘little child - little children’), never appears in the non-head position of compounds. As this diminutive plural rule is extremely regular, it suggests that diminutive plurals in Swabian are derived by a productive symbolic rule that applies after compounding has taken place, which supports a “dual mechanism” approach. Furthermore, it is suggested here that semiotic considerations such as the uniformity and transparency of marking, alongside type frequency, play an important role in the decision on whether a morpho logically complex form is stored in the lexicon or derived by rule.

Crosslinguistic evidence for the diminutive advantage: gender agreement in Russian and Serbian children

Our previous research showed that Russian children commit fewer gender-agreement errors with diminutive nouns than with their simplex counterparts. Experiment 1 replicates this finding with Russian children (N = 24, mean 3;7, range 2;10-4;6). Gender agreement was recorded from adjective usage as children described animal pictures given just their names, varying in derivational status (diminutive/ simplex), novelty, and gender. Experiment 2 extends the gender-agreement elicitation methodology developed for Russian to Serbian, a language with similar morphosyntactic structure but considerably fewer diminutives in child-directed speech. Serbian children (N = 22, mean age 3;8, range 3;0-4;1), exhibited an advantage for diminutive nouns of almost the same magnitude as the Russian children. The fact that the diminutive advantage was found in a language with a low frequency of diminutives in the input suggests that morphophonological homogeneity of word clusters and membership in dense neighbourhoods are important factors that contribute to the reduction of inflectional errors during language development.

Arabic morphology: diminutive verbs and diminutive nouns in San’ani Arabic

Word formation in Arabic has traditionally been assumed to involve interdigitation of a consonantal root with a vocalic pattern. This view is adopted by a large number of modern generative morphologists. More recently, however, several morphologists have argued that words in Semitic are formed from fully vocalised stems. In this paper, I argue that in San'ani (the dialect of San'a), and in some other Arabic dialects, there is a class of verbs that have as part of either their denotations or connotations a diminutive sense. I then consider diminutive nouns in the dialect. On the basis of semantic and phonological relationships between diminutive verbs and their non-diminutive counterparts, as well as native speakers' explanations of certain diminutive verbs, and the relationship between diminutive nouns and their non-diminutive counterparts, I argue that while some derivational processes take the root as the basic morphological unit, phonological and semantic similarities between certain stems can only be accounted for by derivation from a fully vocalised stem. I therefore conclude that both root-based and stem-based types of word formation occur.

The Role of Diminutives in the Acquisition of Russian Gender: Can Elements of Child‐Directed Speech Aid in Learning Morphology?

This study investigated second‐language (L2) learning to gain a better understanding of learning mechanisms that also operate in child first‐language (L1) learners. The research was inspired by research on the beneficial effects of child‐directed speech (CDS). We tried to examine whether such benefits can be observed in the domain of inflectional morphology in adult L2 learners. Specifically, we investigated whether one typical feature of CDS, diminutivization, can facilitate learning of Russian gender. Diminutives (i.e., the translational equivalent of doggy, birdie, etc.) are a pervasive feature of Russian CDS. Olmsted (1994) suggested that the frequent use of diminutives in Russian CDS may facilitate the child's acquisition of grammatical gender because it eliminates nontransparent morphophonological marking. To examine the effect of diminutives on gender learning directly, adult native speakers of English were taught a variety of Russian nouns, with half of the participants trained on diminutive nouns and half on the nondiminutive base forms. Over 4 sessions, participants learned to use color adjectives to name the color of the objects depicting the nouns. In Russian, adjectives have to agree in gender with the nouns they modify; correct adjective agreement was used as a measure of gender learning. The diminutive training group demonstrated better learning of noun gender and better generalization to novel word forms and novel nouns, thus confirming the beneficial effects of diminutives on gender learning. The observed diminutive benefit for gender agreement has subsequently been demonstrated in Russian children (Kempe, Brooks, Mironova, & Fedorova, 2003), both for familiar and, in even more pronounced ways, for novel nouns, thus confirming the generalizability of the results to L1 learners. In light of these later findings, the present study underscores the importance of complementary research in L1 and L2 learning so that important questions about the nature of L1 acquisition may be answered by means of controlled manipulation of the language input in L2 learning.