Morphological richness and priority of pragmatics over semantics in Italian, Arabic, German, and English diminutives

This paper examines the impact of the typological property of morphological richness on diminutive formation in Italian, Austrian German, English, and Tunisian Arabic. It investigates the priority of the pragmatics over the semantics of diminutives in these languages, i.e., of pragmatic meanings such as mitigation, endearment, sympathy, empathy, and irony over smallness and youth. Hypocoristics and quasi-hypocoristics are also dealt with. Diminutive formation in Arabic is root-based, in English word-based, in German and Italian it is both. Morphological richness has an impact on high type/token frequencies (Italian > Arabic > or ≈ German > English), number of productive diminutive patterns, number of different patterns applying to the same base (if pragmatic, no pattern or lexical blocking, e.g., Italian vipp-ino/-etto/-uccio/-ar-ello), combinations of diminutive suffixes. Italian is the freest language in attributing to diminutives both the head and the non-head property of changing (or not) the gender, and of transforming (or not) adjectives into nouns. English and German turn adjectives into nouns, German also changes gender into neuter, with the exception of (quasi-)hypocoristics and of child-/pet-centred speech. The data analyzed are from Viennese German, Tunisian Arabic, Tuscan Italian, and British English. Our focus is on diminutives in asymmetric communication with pet animals.