Hypocoristic Forms Research Articles

Epistolary Dialogue between Zofia Kossak and Jan Dobraczyński. Forms of Address and Letter Signatures

The epistolary discourse between Zofia Kossak and Jan Dobraczyński, spanning from 1947–1968, proves the dynamic nature of their relationship. The study focuses on the forms of address and epistolary signatures in their correspondence. In addition to the opening and closing formulas, the forms of address attested in the epistolary corpus under analysis were also analysed. As formal exponents of the bond and of the signalled sender-receiver attitude, forms of address differed. Dobraczyński’s use of forms of address was fixed and conventional, with little variation in his signatures. Conversely, Kossak was more spontaneous in both respects. Her forms of address featured nominalised variants of conventional adjectives like dear and beloved, used singularly or in a syntagmatic series, and complemented by the addressee’s name in the main, diminutive or hypocoristic form. Some cases were colloquial and humorous phrases with the lexeme dad and chap/man. Still other forms included occasional, allusive lexemes, resultant from the subject matter of the letters. Beyond fulfilling the phatic function typical of such correspondence, these forms of address also served denotative and expressive purposes.

Ką lemia asimetrija: turkų kalbos kreipiniai bendraujant su naminiais gyvūnais, kūdikiais ir vaikais

Terms of address in Turkish spontaneous pet-, infant-, and child-directed speech were compared in terms of the proportion of diminutive and hypocoristic morphemes attached to various types of bases. The goal of the study was to see whether there was any difference in their distribution in different addressee groups that could be attributed to the asymmetrical communication in pet-directed speech. The results showed that, in Turkish, a language poor in diminutives and hypocoristics, the asymmetry is not observed in the distribution of diminutive and hypocoristic forms. It is observed, however, in the morphopragmatic expression of endearment in general that included the possessive morphology, which seemed to be an alternative form used instead of diminutives and hypocoristics or along with them.

Disyllabic hypocoristics in Chilean Spanish: a stratal OT analysis

Abstract Hypocoristics have received considerable interest from phonologists in recent decades, particularly within the Optimality-theoretic literature. While most of these analyses have been situated in parallelist OT, I claim that this architectural choice entails hidden complexities. It is cross-linguistically common for multiple hypocoristics to be formed from a single proper noun, e.g., Matthew → Matt/Matty. In this case, parallelist OT must resort to co-phonologies to avoid ranking paradoxes, which results in significant analytical complexity. By contrast, I argue in this paper that a stratal analysis is crucial for capturing multiple patterns of Hypocoristic Formation (HF) within a single architecture. I present here data of disyllabic hypocoristics from Standard Chilean Spanish. These hypocoristics are derived from the proper nouns by means of two separate anchoring sites: to the left edge of the full name, or to prominence in the full name, i.e., the tonic syllable. In addition, hypocoristics may be prosodically- or morphologically-driven: they may solely be formed by truncating the material of the proper noun, or, in the latter case, there may also be additional suffixal material provided. These data, therefore, lend themselves to a four-way categorisation. I show that this categorisation can be fully accounted for within a stratal architecture, and without the need for additional co-phonologies. Within the analysis, I locate each of the anchoring sites within the lexical phonology: edge-anchoring occurs at the stem level, along with syllabification and stress assignment, while prominence-anchoring occurs at the word level. In this way, the input to edge-anchoring at the stem level comprises a string of segments, while the input to prominence-anchoring at the word-level contains prosodic units up to the foot, which permits word-level HF to anchor to prominence. I further posit that prosodic- and morphologically-driven HF are caused through the passing of hypocoristic morphemes from the morpho-syntax to the phonology. Purely prosodic HF is triggered through a null or covert morpheme, while morphological HF triggered by an overt one. The hypocoristic morphemes themselves are stored as diacritics in the proper nouns’ lexical entries. Furthermore, the constraints that select the hypocoristic forms as optimal are sensitive to the presence of this hypocoristic morpheme, which is reflected in tableaux through indexing. When a hypocoristic morpheme is present in the input of a proper noun to a particular stratum, these highly-ranked indexed constraints select a corresponding hypocoristic form as optimal. If the hypocoristic morpheme is absent, these constraints do not assign violations, and the proper noun is instead (vacuously) found optimal. This analysis thus unifies two distinct patterns of HF in one phonological grammar through the inclusion of indexed-constraints and the serial derivation in a constraint-based architecture.

Surnames of Georgian Jews: Historical and Linguistic Aspects

The article provides an analysis of several aspects of the corpus of surnames used by Jews who lived after the end of the Middle Ages in the territory that today corresponds to the Republic of Georgia. One section covers historical aspects: the earliest attestations and their exact status and the period when the use of surnames became stabilized. The next two sections discuss morphological aspects: the endings found in the surnames and historical, linguistic, and social explanations of the distribution observed, compound names, names with demonymic suffixes, and those based on hypocoristic forms of given names (a detailed coverage of methods of constructing such forms is also provided). In the remaining sections, the reader will find an analysis of phonetic peculiarities found in Georgian Jewish surnames, the types of surnames with their statistical distribution, as well as the description of surnames that were not created in Georgia but were brought as ready-made forms by Jews who migrated during the 19th–20th centuries to Georgia from other territories.

Variation of Proper Names in Nikola Znamensky by Fyodor Reshetnikov

The paper explores the variety of onomastic strategies in the short story Nikola Znamensky by Fyodor Reshetnikov, a follower of the ethnographic movement in the Russian literature of 1860s. It is typical for his works to omit the use of first names in the titles (Glumovs, Aunt Oparikh, Gossip Mironikh, Ilyich, Maxya, Yashka) whilst they play an important role in the stories. For example, the Doctor’s story begins with the first name and so it ends. The name suggests that the protagonist (albeit not openly) opposes himself to the official church position. Apart from that, the character himself claims that the name predicts his fate. Having lost the spiritual title, he also refuses the name. Within the text, only ten characters are named, and the naming strategies used in each case are different. The distinguishing factor is the variability of the name forms. This article aims to understand whether this variation affects the way the nature of the character is represented in the story. The analysis shows that the story features six context-driven forms of the name of the story’s main character, Nikola Znamensky. Religious teachers address Nikola by using the full form of the name. The narrator also refers to him as Nikolai. The character himself (and his fellows) tend to use both the full and the “folk” forms of the name (Nikola, Mikola, Mikula). The members of the family use the hypocoristic forms. The names of other characters (from the family circle: brother, sons) are also subject to change: the full form is typical for the speech of the narrator, the derivative diminutive -ka appears in the speech of the priest. The protagonist’s namesake son also has a separate derivative name reference (Nikolai — Kolka) which emphasizes the special role of the title character. The name’s variability thus reflects the main character’s embedding into various social networks and, more importantly, into the “folk” paradigm linking it to the figure of Saint Nicholas. The author concludes that Reshetnikov uses name variability as a characteristic means that adds to the types portrayed in the story.

Name Variation in Old Russian: Main Cases and Possible Interpretations

The study considers several cases of the variation of Christian and original Slavic names of persons in Medieval Rus. Based on chronicles, birch bark letters, and business documents, the article traces the changes in the form of one and the same name, investigates the context, and offers possible explanations for each distribution of name forms. First, the article addresses hypocoristic forms of Christian names (Mikhalko, Yanka), which in the period under study most often did not carry a diminutive or pejorative meaning but could perform a neutralizing function in the interaction between original Slavic and foreign name systems: in an earlier Rostov chronicle Michael of Chernigov appears under the form Mikhalko, while in later sources he is consistently mentioned under the form Mikhail. Second, the variations between canonical and popular forms of the same Christian name (Aleksey/Oleksey, Stefan/Stepan) are analyzed in the context of narrative changes. We found that in contexts related to their death and/or participation in the construction of a church, many posadniks [city m ayors] of Novgorod are mentioned by the canonical form of their name, while in the description of other events — consistently by the popular form). Finally, special attention in the article is devoted to the influence of the graphic systems of Old Russian sources on the alternation of the forms of Christian names, as well as to the limits of variation of native Slavic names in the context of personal correspondence in birch bark letters as compared with the chronicles.

Hypocoristic forms of Old Russian Christian names

Hypocoristic forms of Old Russian Christian names

FORMAÇÃO E USOS DE NOMES HIPOCORÍSTICOS NO PORTUGUÊS DO BRASIL E NO IDIOMA LITUANO

RESUMO Este artigo apresenta uma pesquisa em Antroponomástica, um ramo da Onomástica dedicado ao estudo dos nomes próprios de pessoa. O foco desse artigo é a descrição e comparação (1) dos diferentes processos morfológicos envolvidos na formação de hipocorísticos no Português do Brasil e no idioma lituano e (2) dos usos de nomes hipocorísticos como prenomes oficiais em ambos os países de acordo com dados disponíveis em dois websites institucionais nacionais. A análise comparativa descrita ao longo do artigo mostra que os processos morfológicos de abreviação de prenomes de cada língua apresentam entre si mais similaridades do que diferenças. Apesar dessas semelhanças, os usos de hipocorísticos como prenome são bem diferentes em cada país. De acordo com os dados estatísticos brasileiros, atualmente, tem diminuído o uso de hipocorístico como prenome. Ao contrário, segundo os dados estatísticos lituanos, o uso de hipocorísticos como prenome é uma tendência contemporânea na Lituânia.

What do we call the children? Familial terms of address in Polish and English

The paper addresses cultural differences between Polish and English as they pertain to familial terms of address. Using corpus data, I demonstrate that Polish parents frequently address their children using hypocoristic forms of the terms syn ‘son’, córka ‘daughter’ and dziecko ‘child’. These forms convey affection and emphasize familial ties. English parents, on the other hand, use children’s names, nicknames, or terms of endearment. I argue that these differences follow from underlying contrasts in cultural scripts: English individualism and Polish warmth.

Официальные и «вторые» имена этнических тувинцев Монголии

Introduction. The article analyzes personal names and nicknames of Mongolia’s ethnic Tuvans which is an understudied ― though topical ― issue of contemporary Tuvan onomastics. The ‘second’ names contain data about old and modern culture of foreign Tuvans, and particularly that of Mongolia-based ones. Goals. The article primarily seeks to identify official, ‘home’, and ‘paired’ names (i.e. nicknames) of Tuvans residing in Western Mongolia. To date, this aspect of Tuvan linguistics has been no object of any special scientific research. So, the work can fill the gap, and facilitate further development of Tuvan onomastics in general. Materials. The paper analyzes personal names and ‘second’ names collected by the author during field research in Bayan-Olgii and Khovd Provinces of Mongolia inhabited by ethnic Tuvans. Results. The analysis of personal names and nicknames concludes that the official documents of the latter mention personal names of Tibetan-Mongolian origin, while in everyday life they actually use ‘second’ names that deal with the history, customs and traditions of their ancestors. In the past, both essentially Tuvan and Tibetan-Mongolian names served as ‘household’ and ‘paired’ ones, while the current period witnesses the additional use of hypocoristic forms which is a novelty to name-giving practices of Mongolia’s Tuvans.

Лексичні засоби позначення дитячого віку в писемних пам’ятках української мови ХVІ-ХVІІІ ст.

Research devoted to childhood as a social-cultural phenomenon has become more active in present-day science. Scientists study some peculiarities of the perception of child and childhood by society in different historical epochs, try to fix childhood limits and to define age periods within child age, and make a conclusion that in many cases, periods of man's life are correlated with social roles of people rather than with biological age, and they were formed under the influence of social institutes developing together with the evolution of society. The present paper analyzes lexical means used in written records of the Ukrainian language in the 16th-18th centuries to denote child age and express the concept of an age differentiation of childhood. The written records of the Ukrainian language of different genres in the mentioned period were the sources of the research: e.g. business language records, P. Berynda's dictionary, religious texts, sermons, and poetic works. Lexical units expressing child age to denote childhood as an age period of man's life and general names originating from colloquial language and taken from Church Slavonic were used to denote children. Written sources confirm an active use of hypocoristic forms. The lack of a clear classification of childhood into separate age periods is seen in the system of children's names. Most of the general names denoting children did not represent an age gradation of childhood and only some words were special names of a child expressing an age characteristic: those were the names of a newly-born child and a baby. Some adjectives combination with nouns to denote children indicated a relative age characteristic (little, minor) but the contexts in which phrases with the adjective little were used did not give a reason to distinguish between a little child and a young man. In several sources, a seven-year period was classified as a special stage in a child's life, first of all, due to religious practice. According to Christian tradition, a child was considered to have no sins until the age of 7 since he or she cannot distinguish between good and bad. After that, he or she had to shrive. In secular practice, the age of 7 became the time when a child would be sent to an educational institution. The texts of pedagogical orientation prove the synonymy of common names denoting children with special names of the individuals who get education. A differentiation according to an age characteristic “adulthood” vs. “minority” can be seen clearly, which is explained by the legal status of an adult and, correspondingly, is expressed by the corresponding lexical denotations. The vocabulary denoting this age period is mostly represented by sources written in business language. One can see that lexical semantics, with help of which child age is marked in records of the Ukrainian language in the 16th-18th centuries, gives a general concept of childhood common for Ukrainian and European social communities of that time.

Hypocoristic Word Formation in Malay: TETU and Anti-faithfulness

The aim of this study is to clarify the two properties of Malay hypocoristic word formation: length determination and segmental alternations. We collected 211 Malay hypocoristic words from one female Malay speaker, and descriptively generalized and theoretically analyzed these two properties. As for the length determination, it turns out that Malay hypocoristics are either monosyllabic or disyllabic. For example, Azrin is truncated to a monosyllabic form Rin , whereas Marniyati is shortened to a disyllabic form Yati . Default length is disyllabic, but monosyllabicity occurs in restricted environments. As for the segmental alternation, some segments in base names are altered to other segments in their hypocoristic forms. For example, [f] is changed to [p], such that Saiful is truncated to Pul and Suffian is truncated to Pian . Segmental structure usually becomes less marked in hypocoristic forms, but it becomes more marked in restricted environments. From the perspective of Optimality Theory, it will be claimed that both the length determination and the segmental alternation can be captured as The Emergence of The Unmarked (TETU) phenomenon, basically as in other languages, but that they involve anti-faithfulness effects in restricted environments.

Falsos antropónimos en la toponimia española: <i>Fuente de Mariguantes, Alto de Maripez, Mariagua</i>

This paper aims to show the depth of the relationship between place names and personal names in Spanish Onomastics. In Spanish place names the female name María or Mari (hypocoristic form) is frequently found. Among some of those names a second element is also present, a somewhat surprising surname of Mari or María which occurs in examples such as Mariguantes, Maripez, Mariagua . In our view there seems to have in fact been a first element Mira-, with vowel metathesis favored by folk etymology. Other Spanish place names also offer Paco and Juan as false anthroponyms.

Die skandinavischen Personennamen in den Birkenrindeninschriften

Until now there have been found about one thousand birch bark documents in Northern Russia, containing approximately one thousand different personal names (including patronymics, nicknames, possessive adjectives etc.), most of them of Christian-Greek or native Slavic origin. Besides a number of Finno-Ugrian names, there is also a small number of Scandinavian personal names. The article shows that more than half of these names are already documented in the Primary Chronicle (Glebъ [with hypocoristic forms in -ьcь and -ko], Jakunъ [possibly also the hypocoristic form Jaksa], Ljutъ, Rjurę [as a hypocoristic form of Rjurikъ] and Svenь), two names (Azъgutъ and Vigarь) are likely to be of Scandinavian origin, another two (Stenь and Velьjutъ) may be Scandinavian, while two names, proposed by Mel'nikova (Gugmorъ and Vozemutъ) cannot be interpreted as Scandinavian. This seems to suggest that the Scandinavian cultural influence in medieval Novgorod was much lesser than the political influence.

From morphophonology to sociolinguistics: The case of Akan hypocoristic day-names

During hypocoristization in Akan, such morphological processes as compounding and reduplication as well as such (morpho)phonological processes as deletion, tonal change and vowel harmony take place. Akan hypocoristic personal day-names provide an insight into morphological status marking. Hypocoristic forms may be used in a superior-to-subordinate communicative context, among equals and in a subordinate-to-superior context. When used in a superior-to-subordinate interactive context, hypocoristic names express affection, tenderness, playfulness, warmth, and the idea of being loved and of being considered worth caring for. It may also denote smallness or diminutiveness of the referent. Among equals, hypocoristic names may be used to show playfulness, oneness or 'we'ness and sometimes, teasing. In a subordinate-to-superior situation, hypocoristic forms, if not preceded by a polite terminal addressive (i.e., a word or an expression denoting deference), express teasing, disrespect towards the referent, unusual familiarity with the referent and/or an unusual friendliness on the part of the speaker. It may also suggest that the referent is not respectable.

Indo-European Personal Names

The basic tenet of Indo-Europeanists with regard to personal proper names has been, stated briefly,' that the typical Indo-European name is a dithematic compound, as exemplified most eminently by many Indic, Greek, and Germanic names. Any name that is not compounded in a like manner, it is asserted, is either actually a shortened hypocoristic form of an original dithematic name, or is some sort of nickname or hybrid-at any rate not a genuine original. If indeed the theory went only so far as to state that the predominant feature of a great number of Indo-European names, particularly in Indic, Greek, and Germanic, is a form of composition resulting largely in the dithematic onomastic type, no serious objection could be raised. But the creators and propagators of this theory were obviously determined to arrive at some more comprehensively valid rule. Of course, this rule was bound to include exceptions; but not even the existence of an abnormally great number of exceptions seemed to arouse any grave doubts as to the universal applicability of the rule, nor was it deemed necessary on their account to investigate the causes of the divergencies. First of all, one is struck by that very important exception covering the entire Latin onomastic system, where hardly any trace appears of the so-called IndoEuropean name. Yet at least one scholar thought to have discovered what he believed to be the remnants of the ancient Indo-European system.2 It is affirmed, for example, that Lucius is not derived from lucere, 'quia oriente luce natus est', but is a shortened form (Kurzform) of Lucifer. To create any such hypothetical etymology, particularly in onomastics, means to run great danger of being wrong. For there are actually only a few persons in the world who could tell why the first or any subsequent Lucius was so called, and those persons are either Lucius himself, or perhaps his parents, or at best an authority who had a direct personal knowledge of the particular case in question. Whatever the merits of this one example may be, the same author produces many instances of Latin dithematic names, and in several cases gives a good argument for the derivation of a monothematic from an original dithematic form. But the conclusions, I think, go much further than the evidence warrants:

Gawain, Gwri, and Cuchulinn

In a chapter of my Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance I attempted to prove that the repeated correspondence between the adventures of Cuchulinn in Irish saga and those of Gawain in Arthurian romance could be accounted for only on the hypothesis that the intermediate Welsh figure was Gwri; and that this hypothesis was the key to many things in Arthurian nomenclature. My statement of the case, though it has convinced a number of the most competent judges, suffered from the fact that the interpretation of one Welsh name was questionable, and of another erroneous, that it involved the inconclusive and unessential derivation of the name Cuchulinn from a hypocoristic form of Curoi, and that the argument did not start from the most advantageous point of departure. In the following article I endeavor to remedy those defects.