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13 Acquisition of diminutives in Russian and Estonian from a typological perspective

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Diminutives across Languages, Theoretical Frameworks and Linguistic Domains
This chapter is in the book Diminutives across Languages, Theoretical Frameworks and Linguistic Domains

Abstract

This paper investigates diminutives in two typologically different languages during the early stages of language development based on the spontaneous longitudinal data of six typically-developing monolingual children, aged from 1;3 to 3;0. The main focus of our research is how different diminutive systems, i.e., rich (in strongly inflected Russian) and poor (in mostly agglutinating Estonian), are acquired and how the typologically similar and different features are reflected in this process. In Russian, diminutives are acquired as part of a rich and productive derivational system. This is manifested in their gradual increase within nominal derivatives, a growth in suffix inventory and the development of other features of productivity. The presence/absence of a simplex, along with a corresponding diminutive pattern in the children’s speech, is important for the inflectional shift documented in difficult-to-acquire nouns. In Estonian, the acquisition of diminutives is different in terms of their frequency, number of suffixes, and the decrease in use during development. The diminutives behave like triggers for the acquisition of derivation and lose their importance during development. The inflectional shifts caused by diminutivization are equally characteristic to both suffixal and non-suffixal diminutives and demonstrate the avoidance of stem changes (i. e., grade alternation).

Abstract

This paper investigates diminutives in two typologically different languages during the early stages of language development based on the spontaneous longitudinal data of six typically-developing monolingual children, aged from 1;3 to 3;0. The main focus of our research is how different diminutive systems, i.e., rich (in strongly inflected Russian) and poor (in mostly agglutinating Estonian), are acquired and how the typologically similar and different features are reflected in this process. In Russian, diminutives are acquired as part of a rich and productive derivational system. This is manifested in their gradual increase within nominal derivatives, a growth in suffix inventory and the development of other features of productivity. The presence/absence of a simplex, along with a corresponding diminutive pattern in the children’s speech, is important for the inflectional shift documented in difficult-to-acquire nouns. In Estonian, the acquisition of diminutives is different in terms of their frequency, number of suffixes, and the decrease in use during development. The diminutives behave like triggers for the acquisition of derivation and lose their importance during development. The inflectional shifts caused by diminutivization are equally characteristic to both suffixal and non-suffixal diminutives and demonstrate the avoidance of stem changes (i. e., grade alternation).

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. 1 Introduction: Diminutives across languages, theoretical frameworks and linguistic domains 1
  4. Part I: Theoretical approaches to diminutive formation
  5. 2 On a low and a high position for diminutive non-manual markers in Italian Sign Language 37
  6. 3 Diminutive or singulative? The suffixes -in and -k in Russian 65
  7. 4 Slavic diminutive morphology: An interplay of scope, templates and paradigms 89
  8. 5 Diminutive formation in Spanish: Evidence for word morphology 115
  9. 6 The syllable as the basis for word formation: Evidence from diminutives, hypocoristics and clippings in English, Dutch, Afrikaans, Swedish and French 131
  10. Part II: Corpus-based and other empirical studies
  11. 7 The Swedish suffix -is and its place within evaluative morphology 153
  12. 8 Diminutives and number: Theoretical predictions and empirical evidence from German in Austria 179
  13. 9 Diminutive verbs in the Austrian language area: Morphological and semantic challenges 205
  14. 10 Challenges in analyzing Polish diminutives 231
  15. 11 Diminutives among other -k(a) words in colloquial Russian: Frequency and suffix variation 253
  16. Part III: Sociolinguistic, pragmatic and acquisitional studies
  17. 12 Borrowed or inspired? Komi diminutive under Russian influence 277
  18. 13 Acquisition of diminutives in Russian and Estonian from a typological perspective 305
  19. 14 Morphological richness and priority of pragmatics over semantics in Italian, Arabic, German and English diminutives 335
  20. 15 Diminutive variation in Austrian Standard German: A corpuslinguistic study 363
  21. 16 Gender discrepancies and evaluative gender shift: A cross-linguistic study within Distributed Morphology 387
  22. Index 415
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110792874-013

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. 1 Introduction: Diminutives across languages, theoretical frameworks and linguistic domains 1
  4. Part I: Theoretical approaches to diminutive formation
  5. 2 On a low and a high position for diminutive non-manual markers in Italian Sign Language 37
  6. 3 Diminutive or singulative? The suffixes -in and -k in Russian 65
  7. 4 Slavic diminutive morphology: An interplay of scope, templates and paradigms 89
  8. 5 Diminutive formation in Spanish: Evidence for word morphology 115
  9. 6 The syllable as the basis for word formation: Evidence from diminutives, hypocoristics and clippings in English, Dutch, Afrikaans, Swedish and French 131
  10. Part II: Corpus-based and other empirical studies
  11. 7 The Swedish suffix -is and its place within evaluative morphology 153
  12. 8 Diminutives and number: Theoretical predictions and empirical evidence from German in Austria 179
  13. 9 Diminutive verbs in the Austrian language area: Morphological and semantic challenges 205
  14. 10 Challenges in analyzing Polish diminutives 231
  15. 11 Diminutives among other -k(a) words in colloquial Russian: Frequency and suffix variation 253
  16. Part III: Sociolinguistic, pragmatic and acquisitional studies
  17. 12 Borrowed or inspired? Komi diminutive under Russian influence 277
  18. 13 Acquisition of diminutives in Russian and Estonian from a typological perspective 305
  19. 14 Morphological richness and priority of pragmatics over semantics in Italian, Arabic, German and English diminutives 335
  20. 15 Diminutive variation in Austrian Standard German: A corpuslinguistic study 363
  21. 16 Gender discrepancies and evaluative gender shift: A cross-linguistic study within Distributed Morphology 387
  22. Index 415
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