Date: 20-Feb-2007 From: Paul Peranteau <paulbenjamins.com> Subject: The Acquisition of Diminutives: Savickienė, Dressler (Eds)
Title: The Acquisition of Diminutives
Subtitle: A cross-linguistic perspective
Series Title: Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 43
Published: 2007
Publisher: John Benjamins
http://www.benjamins.com/
Editor: Ineta Savickienė
Editor: Wolfgang U Dressler
Hardback: ISBN: 9789027253033 Pages: 361 Price: U.S. $ 144.00
Abstract:
This cross-linguistic volume innovates research of the acquisition of diminutives in the inflecting-fusional languages Lithuanian, Russian, Croatian, Greek, Italian, Spanish, German and Dutch, the agglutinating languages Turkish, Hungarian and Finnish and in the introflecting Hebrew. These languages differ in various aspects relevant for the acquisition of diminutives and the development of pragmatics in early child language. Diminutive formation often tends to be the first pattern of word formation to emerge. The main reason for this seems to lie in the pragmatic functions of endearment, empathy, and sympathy, which make diminutives particularly appropriate for child-centred communication. A main topic of this book is the relation of emergence and early development between diminutives and other categories of word formation and inflection. The greater degree of morphological productivity and transparency, as well as phonological saliency, favors the use of diminutives. In this case diminutives may facilitate the acquisition of inflection.
Linguistic Field(s):
Language Acquisition
Morphology
Psycholinguistics
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