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SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF DIMINUTIVES IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK
LANGUAGE
Mamatkulova N. F
Uzbek State World Languages University
Davletyarova N.I.
Tashkent Pediatric Medical Institute
Language (e.g., structure, morphology, and wording) can direct our
attention toward the specific properties of an object, in turn influencing the
mental representation of that same object. In this paper, we examined this idea
by focusing on a particular linguistic form of diminution used in English and
Uzbek languages to refer to an object as being ―smaller.‖ Diminutive research is
often too narrowly focused on suffixed nouns, while other types of diminutive
formation are neglected. A plea is therefore made to also consider other
formation types including reduplication, compounding and periphrastic
constructions. Furthermore, it is shown that a more differentiated account of
diminutive meaning is needed than is currently available.
Key words:
Notion of diminutive, diminutive formation, prototypical
diminutives, morphological approach
INTRODUCTION
"One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every
door along the way." (Frank Smith) Nowadays so many new researches on
comparative linguistics have been accomplished and other lots of are being
done. In this article we will discuss some features of diminutives in English and
Uzbek languages.
The truth about diminutives is not easily found, given the specific nature
of this phenomenon. Bauer et al. (in press: 664) aptly summarize the situation,
as they note: ―The notion of diminutive is not easy to define clearly. One
problem with this notion is the semantics, the other the kind of formal means
employed to express diminutive meaning.‖ Indeed, it is not a trivial task to
identify formal means when it is not entirely clear what these means are
supposed to express. The problems, at least in part, stem from the fact that
„diminutive
‟
is a category derived from traditional grammar, originally used in
the description of Latin, with a typical mélange of structural and semantic
aspects. Thus, as traditional definitions tend to be circular, and as it is neither
clear what exactly diminutive formation is, nor what diminutive meaning is,
diminutives pose a two-fold challenge.
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MAIN PART
The problem concerning the formal means which can be employed to
express diminutive meaning can in essence be attributed to a prototype effect in
the category „diminutive
‟
.
Prototypical diminutives, i.e. diminutives generally considered to be the
―best‖ examples of this category, are nouns derived from nouns by attaching a
suffix which functions as the diminutive marker (or „diminutivizer
‟
): N + suffix
dim > N dim „small N
‟
, „kichkina OT
‟
. In this case, the suffix does not change
the word class of the base, nor does it crucially change the meaning of the base.
The meaning of the base is merely modified by adding the semantic component
SMALL (KICHKINA). Thus, cubelets, for example, are still cubes, ( kubikchalar
in Uzbek and they are still cubes) and droplets still drops (tomchilar and
diminutive form not with suffix yet syntactic way as mitti tomchi), albeit small
ones compared to the size considered normal for cubes and drops respectively. It
has therefore been suggested that prototypical diminutives do not result from a
process of derivation, but from a process of modification, in which word class is
retained and the meaning just modified (cf., e.g., Schneider 2003: 9).
The Uzbek language
The English language With this prototype in mind, diminutives have been,
and predominantly still are, narrowly defined as a morphological category
belonging to the realm of word-formation commonly referred to as „evaluative
morphology
‟
, together with only very few other phenomena including, first and
foremost, „augmentatives
‟
. This approach seems entirely valid for languages
which have developed from Latin, such as Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, and
some other Indo-European languages, especially Slavic languages and also
Dutch and German but this never happens nearly in Uzbek language from
Turkic group. This approach is, however, inadequate for the description of
languages in which prototypical diminutives do
Diminutivizer
• Syntactic way: ―kichkina, mitti‖ ex. Tiny drops
• Morphemic way: - cha, -choq ex. Kubacha
Diminutivizer
•Syntactic way: ―small‖ small cubes
•Morphemic way: -let cubelet not exist.
A statement to the effect that, e.g., the English language does not have any
diminutives, or that diminutives are only marginal in English (cf., e.g, Grandi
2011: 7), only make sense if the notion of diminutives is reduced to the
prototypical form. More generally, a narrow morphological approach is
particularly unsuitable for typological work, because many of the world
‟
s
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languages e.g. in Africa or Asia do not have any suffixes, or have no affixes at
all. As Haspelmath (2007: 128) reminds us: ―Typologists must realize that they
cannot base their comparisons on formal categories …‖. What is needed,
therefore, and especially for cross-lingual comparison, is an onomasiological
perspective, i.e. taking diminutive meaning, and not (prototypical) diminutive
form, as the starting point for analysis. Needless to say, such an approach
presupposes a clear idea of the meaning which is expressed, in other words, of
the common denominator which justifies the identification of formal means as
means of diminutive formation (cf. section 3 below). Adopting an
onomasiological approach in their survey of word-formation in the world
‟
s
languages, which is based on a sample of fifty-five languages, Štekauer et al.
(2012: 237-303, esp. 264-274) identify a total of four different processes which
are employed to form diminutives. Apart from suffixation, these are prefixation,
reduplication and compounding (Štekauer et al. 2012: 267-269). Schneider
(2003), whose primary interest is in English diminutives, also discusses the
formal means generally available in languages to convey diminutive meaning,
but does not limit his survey to word-formation processes alone. In addition to
the four processes identified by Štekauer et al. (2012), Schneider furthermore
lists truncation, inflection and periphrastic constructions (Schneider 2003: 7-
10). The first two of these are also morphological processes, although the status
of truncation has sometimes been challenged. While some scholars have argued
that truncation is an extra-grammatical process and, hence, does not belong to
word-formation or morphology, others have classified it as a secondary or
unpredictable word-formation process, or have dealt with it in the framework of
prosodic morphology (for a discussion, cf. Schneider 2003: 9; cf. also Lappe 2007:
31-58). The third type, on the other hand, i.e. periphrastic construction, is
definitely outside the scope of morphology. Diminutives formed by employing
this formation type are sometimes referred to as „syntactic diminutives
‟
or
„analytic diminutives
‟
(as opposed to „morphological diminutives
‟
or „synthetic
diminutives
‟
; cf. Schneider 2003: 7). As a rule, such constructions comprise two
constituents, namely the base word and an independent diminutive marker,
which may be an adjective as in the A+N pattern found, for instance, in both
English and Uzbek as in little house, little chat and little boy (mitti uy or
uycha, kichik suhbat but not suhbatcha, kichkina bola or bolacha ).
It has been further suggested that three semantic patterns can be observed
in formations with the suffix -let (Schneider & Strubel-Burgdorf 2012: 17-18).
These are: In English N ‗object‘ + -let > N ‗small object‘ e.g. cubelet, droplet,
bomblet N ‗animal/plant‘ + -let > N ‗young animal/plant‘ e.g. piglet, skunklet;
plantlet, nutlet) N ‗person‘ + -let > N ‗despicable person‘ e.g. wifelet, princelet,
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thieflet In Uzbek N ‗object‘ + -cha > N ‗small object‘ e.g. uycha, kitobcha,
sochiqcha N ‗animal/plant‘ + -cha > N ‗young animal‘ e.g. buzoqcha, qushcha,
echkicha, N ‗person‘ + -cha > N ‗despicable person‘ e.g. yigitcha, qizcha, oyimcha
Discussing formations with -let taken from the British National Corpus, also
distinguish the first two of these patterns, but not the third. In the first
pattern, they describe the meaning component added by the suffix as ―a simple
meaning of small size used on inanimate entities‖. The label „object
‟
employed
in the table above is, in fact, shorthand for „inanimate entities
‟
, as this category
includes not only man-made objects such as bomblets, pielet and flatlets, but
also natural phenomena such as droplet, cloudlet and wavelet (uycha, kitobcha,
sochiqcha in Uzbek). The suffix meaning in the second pattern is characterized
by Bauer et al. (in press: 666) as ―„small of a species
‟
, occasionally „young of a
species
‟
‖. Their examples include animal terms exclusively, while data also
include plant terms, e.g. branchlet, bulblet and rootlet. Plant terms are,
however, much less frequent in the corpus. While the meaning of diminutives
derived from plant terms seems to be „small X
‟
more often than „young X
‟
, the
opposite seems to be true for animal terms. Diminutives such as piglet,
skunklet, froglet etc. (buzoqcha, qushcha, echkicha in Uzbek ) usually refer to
„young of a species
‟
rather than „small of a species
‟
. Young animals are, of
course, not only younger but also smaller than adult animals. As mentioned
before, Bauer et al. (in press) do not identify the third semantic pattern listed
above (i.e. N „person
‟
+ -let > N „despicable person
‟
), despite the fact that they
discuss the forms wifelet and kinglet (yigitcha, qizcha, oyimcha in Uzbek ) and
the various meanings these forms may express, before they present their
semantic groups (Bauer et al, in press: 664-665). They do, however, list another
third group, for which they characterize the meaning of -let as ―slightly
disparaging‖ (Bauer et al., in press: 666). This group includes godlet, playlet
and starlet. These forms do not, however, pose any serious problems and can
actually be subsumed under the semantic patterns listed above.
CONCLUSION
Despite a very large div of research on diminutives, there are still
problems pertaining to both the formation and the meaning of diminutives. At
least some of these problems stem from the traditional notion of prototypical
diminutives and are particularly acute in cross-linguistic and typological work.
For such work, a focus on prototypical diminutives is too narrow, as is a
limitation to word formation or morphology. In short, diminutives are not,
generally speaking, a morphological category. Other linguistic devices must also
be considered in the analysis. These include, for instance, constructions of word
formation in English and Uzbek languages. To avoid formal and semantic
THEORY AND ANALYTICAL ASPECTS OF RECENT RESEARCH
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th
2023
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problems, an alternative approach is proposed which seems particularly
suitable for cross-lingual and typological studies. In this approach, the starting
point for the analysis is neither form nor meaning but function, and especially
socially motivated functions which diminutives fulfill in specific types of
context.
SOURCES:
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5033980/
2. https://science.jdpu.uz/index.php/fll/article/view/612
3. ŠTEKAUER, Pavol, VALERA, Salvador, KÖRTVÉLYESSY, Lívia. 2012.
Word-formation in the world
‟
s languages: a typological survey. Cambridge :
Cambridge University Press, 2012.
4. SCHNEIDER, Klaus P. 2003. Diminutives in English. Tübingen :
Niemeyer, 2003.
