Misplaced Pages

#45954

13-619: Dewi ( [ˈdɛwiː] , also [ˈdauwiː] or [ˈdeːwiː] ) is an alternate or diminutive form of the Welsh masculine given name Dafydd (" David "). It is most famously borne by the patron saint of Wales , Saint David (Welsh: Dewi Sant ). It may also refer to: Dewi ( [ˈdewi] ) is also the Indonesian and Malay version of the Hindu devi (" goddess "). It may refer to: Diminutive A diminutive

26-428: A higher tendency toward isolation generally exhibit a morpheme-per-word ratio close to 1:1. In an ideal isolating language, visible morphology would be entirely absent, as words would lack any internal structure in terms of smaller, meaningful units called morphemes. Such a language would not use bound morphemes like affixes . The morpheme-to-word ratio operates on a spectrum, ranging from lower ratios that skew toward

39-502: Is a productive part of the language. For example, in Spanish gordo can be a nickname for someone who is overweight, and by adding an -ito suffix, it becomes gordito which is more affectionate. Examples for a double diminutive having two diminutive suffixes are in Polish dzwon → dzwonek → dzwoneczek or Italian casa → casetta → casettina ). In English,

52-399: Is a diminutive form with two diminutive suffixes rather than one. Diminutives are often employed as nicknames and pet names when speaking to small children and when expressing extreme tenderness and intimacy to an adult. The opposite of the diminutive form is the augmentative . In some contexts, diminutives are also employed in a pejorative sense to denote that someone or something

65-399: Is a word obtained by modifying a root word to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment , and sometimes to derogatorily belittle something or someone. A diminutive form ( abbreviated DIM ) is a word-formation device used to express such meanings. A double diminutive

78-605: Is perfectly possible for a language to have one inflectional morpheme yet more than one unit of meaning. For example, the Russian word vídyat /видят "they see" has a morpheme per word ratio of 2:1 since it has two morphemes. The root vid- /вид- conveys the imperfective aspect meaning, and the inflectional morpheme -yat /-ят inflects for four units of meaning (third- person subject, plural subject, present/future tense , indicative mood ). Effectively, it has four units of meaning in one inseparable morpheme: -yat /-ят. Languages with

91-405: Is that of an analytic language , which uses unbound morphemes or syntactical constructions to indicate grammatical relationships. Isolating and analytic languages tend to overlap in linguistic scholarship. Isolating languages contrast with synthetic languages , also called inflectional languages , where words often consist of multiple morphemes. That linguistic classification is subdivided into

104-467: Is weak or childish. For example, one of the last Western Roman emperors was Romulus Augustus , but his name was diminutivized to "Romulus Augustulus" to express his powerlessness. In many languages, diminutives are word forms that are formed from the root word by affixation . In most languages, diminutives can also be formed as multi-word constructions such as " Tiny Tim ", or "Little Dorrit". In most languages that form diminutives by affixation, this

117-960: The alteration of meaning is often conveyed through clipping , making the words shorter and more colloquial . Diminutives formed by adding affixes in other languages are often longer and (as colloquial) not necessarily understood. While many languages apply a grammatical diminutive to nouns , a few – including Slovak, Dutch , Spanish , Romanian , Latin , Polish , Bulgarian , Czech , Russian and Estonian – also use it for adjectives (in Polish: słodki → słodziutki → słodziuteńki ) and even other parts of speech (Ukrainian спати → спатки → спатоньки — to sleep or Slovak spať → spinkať → spinuškať — to sleep, bežať → bežkať — to run). Diminutives in isolating languages may grammaticalize strategies other than suffixes or prefixes. In Mandarin Chinese , for example, other than

130-437: The classifications fusional , agglutinative , and polysynthetic , which are based on how the morphemes are combined. Although historically, languages were divided into three basic types ( isolating , inflectional , agglutinative ), the traditional morphological types can be categorized by two distinct parameters: A language is said to be more isolating than another if it has a lower morpheme per word ratio. To illustrate

143-415: The nominal prefix 小- xiǎo- and nominal suffixes -儿/-兒 -r and -子 -zi , reduplication is a productive strategy, e.g., 舅 → 舅舅 and 看 → 看看 . In formal Mandarin usage, the use of diminutives is relatively infrequent, as they tend to be considered to be rather colloquial than formal. Some Wu Chinese dialects use a tonal affix for nominal diminutives; that is, diminutives are formed by changing

SECTION 10

#1733093424046

156-464: The relationship between words and morphemes, the English term "rice" is a single word, consisting of only one morpheme ( rice ). This word has a 1:1 morpheme per word ratio. In contrast, "handshakes" is a single word consisting of three morphemes ( hand , shake , -s ). This word has a 3:1 morpheme per word ratio. On average, words in English have a morpheme per word ratio substantially greater than one. It

169-555: The tone of the word. Isolating language An isolating language is a type of language with a morpheme per word ratio close to one, and with no inflectional morphology whatsoever. In the extreme case, each word contains a single morpheme. Examples of widely spoken isolating languages are Yoruba in West Africa and Vietnamese (especially its colloquial register ) in Southeast Asia. A closely related concept

#45954