Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………….........3
Chapter I. The Nature of Diminutives in the English Language
1.1. Diminutive as a Linguistic Category...…………………………………………..….......5
1.2. Formation of English Diminutives ………………………………………..……...…....10
Chapter II. Diminutives as an Expression of Emotiveness in a Text
2.1. Diminutive Meaning in Children’s Literature.………………...….................................14
2.2. Expressive Use of Diminutives in Social Media Contexts…………………………….17
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………….….22
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………………..24

2
 Introduction
Even though diminutives have been studied extensively during the past years, they are still
considered a ‘puzzle’. A plenty of heated discussions are held for their general description. Many
researchers maintain that diminutives denote smallness, others argue that they denote smallness and
have affective or evaluative connotations, while yet others claim that diminutives express affective and
evaluative meaning alone. Despite the fact that a number of recent publications examine aspects of
English diminutive forms and from several viewpoints of different scholars the term diminutive is
explained, there is still controversy over the subject. That is why the study of diminutives is one of the
fundamental issues in the English language and this fact reveals the actuality of the word .
Diminutives are used primarily with the purpose of indicating the smaller size of an object in
comparison to what is commonly accepted as its standard size. A further part of the definition, which
usually follows and is predominant in literature on English diminutives, refers to numerous functions
being assigned to the units in question, such as emotive, positively or pejoratively evaluative,
expressive and ironic.
The object of the work is means with emotive semantic realization in English.
The subject of the work is diminutive as an expressive linguistic form.
The aim of the work is to consider the status of diminutives in English and reveal aspects of
their usage in different language contexts.
To achieve the aim of the work we have put forward the following tasks:
- to provide an overview of the diminutive category in the English language;
- to study the status of the most productive and widely used diminutives in English;
- to identify the main means of the formation of English diminutives and the situations in
which diminutives tend to occur in the language;
- to present the usage of diminutives in different communicative contexts, in particular, in
fairy tales and in the Internet language.
To carry out these tasks we have used the descriptive method as well as the method of semantic
analysis and interpretation.
The practical significance of the work is in its possibility of being useful to both EFL learners
and instructors, on one hand and translators to and from English, on the other. Also it can be used in
practical and theoretical classes and seminars in the course of lexicology, morphology and stylistics.
The theoretical background of the work is based on the works of such scholars as K. P.
Schneider, W. U. Dressler, D. M. Jurafsky, N. H. Grandi and others.
The structure of the work includes introduction, two chapters, conclusion and bibliography.
Chapter I outlines different perspectives and hypotheses regarding the nature of diminutives in
the English language. Diminutives have been defined differently by various scholars, such as K.

3
Schneider, D. Jurafsky, N. Grandi and compared from various viewpoints. Traditionally the term
diminutive has been used to refer to words that denote smallness, and possibly to express the
speaker’s attitude. In many cases diminutives are used when talking to children or referring to
them. These are nouns indicating children’s part of the body, their toys, foods and so on, as well
as certain concrete nouns referring to their immediate environment.
Furthermore, the chapter deals with morphology of diminutives in the English language and
lists word processes that lead to the formation of diminutives. It provide an overview of the
diminutive category in the English language, in terms of productive lexeme formations and the
distribution of semantic denotations. According to Schneider there are two types of diminutive
formation in the English language: the morphological type, also called the synthetic diminutive
formation, and syntactic type, also called analytical.
Chapter II provides with the characterization of diminutive usage in fairy tales. Analyses of
English diminutives and their frequency in children’s books are shown. The chapter illustrates
the two types of expressing diminutiveness in English: synthetic – by a diminutive suffix, and
analytic – by the adjective ‘little’. The most common type of diminutive expressions in English
is adjectives modified by a noun phrase. The chapter continues with the analysis of the Internet
on the basis of a corpus taken from the microblogging service Twitter. This study suggests the
non-serious and emotive features of ‘diminutive’ interjections. It is claimed that diminutives are
not merely ‘response cries’, but serve as items employed by users on Twitter to convey various
emotions and fulfil many functions depending on the context. Diminutives do not necessarily
have to convey smallness but rather the feature of ‘non-seriousness’, which could be labelled as
metaphorical smallness.

4
Chapter I. The Nature of Diminutives in the English Language
1.1. Diminutive as a Linguistic Category
Many languages have a special way to talk about things with tenderness, love, endearment, or
familiarity – this is usually referred to linguistically as the ‘diminutive’. The diminutive is a
morphological linguistic category which allows the speaker to express a number of positive and
negative feelings. A diminutive form of a word implies that something is small, cute, loved, or
special. It is often used when referring to children, but as it was already mentioned, it is also used to
express love, affection, endearment, or even contempt, disdain, irony and mockery, or it can simply
mark the attitude of the speaker towards an object, person, fact, all of them at a certain degree. The
expressed attitude can be either positive or negative, i.e. either affectionate or derogatory, depending
on the specific interplay of linguistic and situational factors in a given context (Schneider,
2003). Nouns, adjectives and adverbs have a wide range of diminutive forms, which are a vital
feature of modern English and carry a variety of expressive and emotional nuances. The character of
diminutives in the English language is a subject of an ongoing debate. According to Schneider (2003)
English, being an analytical language, does not pride itself in a wealth of diminutive forms. Since the
standard English has a limited number of diminutives in comparison with other languages, such as
German, French, Italian, or the Slavic languages, or they are used less than in other languages some
are prone to contributing to the opinion that the English language does not possess diminutives at all.
Defining diminutive expressions is quite a complicated issue. Many linguists define diminutives as
expressions that denote smallness in comparison with neutral words, usually connected to positive
connotation. According to K. P. Schneider, the problem is more complex.
1) “Diminutive is generally regarded as a universal category, found in all languages.
2) Many researchers maintain that diminutives denote smallness; others argue that they denote
smallness and have affective or evaluative meaning alone.
3) It is considered paradoxical that diminutives even one and the same diminutive form can
express appreciative or depreciative connotations” (2003: 68).
Grandi (2011), in his paper Renewal and Innovation in the Emergence of Indo-European
Evaluative Morphology, divides languages into four groups based on their ability to produce
diminutives and places English into the type C languages: languages that have absence of
diminutives.
However, such approach overlooks the types of diminution that do not correspond with the
traditional understanding of this concept that was derived from Latin. Schneider (2003: 137)
considers those definitions “circular” and explaining “neither ... what exactly diminutive formation
is, nor what diminutive meaning is”. Therefore, he is convinced that determining the truth about the
nature of diminutives is not a trivial task and opposes to the conviction that English is entirely

5
lacking diminutives. As the traditional definitions of diminutives are insufficient and limiting, new
need to be formulated by broadening the perspective and taking into account not only the
morphological structure as an important marker of diminutives, but also the semantics.
Grandi’s claims are true only in cases when diminutives are treated purely as a morphological
category containing only prototypical diminutives. Schneider defines prototypical diminutives as
follows:
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 + suffixdim > Ndim ‘small N’. 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’. The description of prototypical
diminutives involves the following parameters: word class of input (base) word and output
(diminutive), formation process, and denotative and connotative meaning components of the output.
This is a description of diminutives in the most traditional sense. Prototypical diminutives seem to be
morphologically transparent and unambiguous in their nature. However, problems arise during
attempts to compile an exhaustive list of suffixes that function as diminutive markers in the English
language.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the semantic property of diminutives is to
denote something little (2015). Cross-linguistic research confirms that the general function of
diminutives is to convey smallness and reinforce the expressiveness of speech (Jurafsky, 1996;
Sifianou, 1992; Taylor, 2003).
Nevertheless, because of the fact that diminutives almost never express only their fundamental
meaning of smallness, as usually they are accompanied by some emotional tinge, each area of study
emphasises the fact that diminutives are by all means linked with the speaker’s positive or negative
emotions, when, by using a particular language, he/she wants to express his/her attitude towards
reality or the present state of affairs. As mentioned above, diminutives belong to the group of
expressive linguistic forms, which are most often used in colloquial language (Skubalanka, 1973;
Zgółkowa, 1991; Podracki, 2010; Liseling Nilsson, 2012). Familiar character of diminutive forms
stems from the fact that, in most cases, they are employed in informal situations, such as family
gatherings or small talks with neighbours.
Grabias (1988) writes that a linguistic expression may be defined as the mechanism in which
the speaker becomes apparent in a given utterance. Emotions which accompany this process,
constitute a particular type of expression, which consists in the manifestation of feelings. Therefore,
expressive linguistic forms are the ones by means of which the speaker expresses his/her emotional
attitude towards the world he/she lives in, or the features of his/her personality (Lubaś, 2003). They

6
also help the speaker judge particular phenomena ‘as to value’, and signal a given way of speaking.
(Dressler and Barbaresi, 1994).
Although diminutives have been established as items that convey various meanings, there are
some differing opinions regarding the basic meanings of diminutives. In contrast to the cognitive
linguistics view, particularly as expressed by Jurafsky (1996), that the meanings of diminutives are
all derived from the semantic field of ‘small’ and are connected to children and women, Schneider
(2013) remarks that the main question is to discover, in context, which particular “meaning in the
conceptual space is activated and relevant for its interpretation.” In a similar vein, Dressler and
Merlini Barbaresi (2001) propose a “basic, common feature for both (specified as [non-serious] for
diminutives)”. They argue that although the English diminutive has a child-centred focus in most
contexts of use (e.g., when used in addressing children, with features of endearment or familiarity),
outside these speech situations the meaning of smallness does not apply. The diminutive meaning
may signal contempt, as in the following example given by Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi (2001):
e.g. I know a roughie when I see one. He is just one of those blokes who can’t stay away from
trouble.
The largest area in which diminutives are used is hypocorisms, when a suffix is added to the
end of an already shortened name, typically of a child. Yet it is not uncommon for an adult to be
referred to by the diminutive, especially by family or friends. Usually meant affectionately, there are
varying degrees of diminutives (a man is William to his acquaintances, Will to his friends, and Willie
to his mother). In English, terminologically speaking, diminutives and hypocorisms are often used
interchangeably, which might as well suggest the spheres of usage of these forms. It follows that
diminutives can fall in three fields in English: endearing first names (nicknames) or address forms,
objects of extralinguistic reality in baby talk, and names of baby animals (mostly in baby talk).
The use of diminutives can easily be observed in baby-talk languages or in informal language,
but they are not well received in the context of a solemn, serious tone, that lacks affectation and
mannerism. In the world of children, diminutives are applied as a means to signal affection, as
expressed by e.g. Petey, Gabrielito (synthetic diminution). It is said that diminutives make the world
less frightening by making it smaller and friendlier, and is thus used in conversations with children
depicting the world as such (Sifianou, 1992). This use of diminutives can be seen in the following
example, where as much as three different diminutive expressions is applied in the one and same
sentence, i.e. suffixation, reduplication and analytic periphrastic construction: e.g. Daddy will only be
away for a teeny-weeny little week, dear.
Diminutive use has thus spread from child language to other domains of language. Its
resourceful nature makes the diminutive category prone to serve different functions in language,
though largely restricted to informal areas of language. The English language has an extremely well-

7
developed set of meanings included in its diminutive repertoire, and can be used to “to produce a
favourable reaction in the person addressed” (Gooch, 1970), act as “mitigators”, which reduce the
amount or the effect of something, making the situation “emotionally manageable” as Gooch (1970)
terms it. English diminutive can also mark social distance and politeness by their application in
requests, offers and orders, as in ‘Just one moment, please’.
Diminutive form of expressing feelings can be retrieved anywhere in the everyday language,
especially in the Internet messages and even in the press. The usage and the presence of diminutives
is undeniable and makes proof of the fact that the diminutive is a well-represented conceptual
category in the English language.
Diminutives are most frequently used in situations between close participants in familiar
settings, usually at home. However, interactions that occur between strangers in formal institutional
contexts, for example, in banks, hospitals or supermarkets, can also be marked by diminutives. The
use of diminutives is most often a sign of reduced psychological distance.
It is true that the usual contexts where we use diminutives are those involving children and
pets. But there are other contexts in which diminutives can be used although not so often. This usage
is connected with the first basic meaning of the diminutive – denoting a small object. This meaning is
not restricted to a certain context or register. As it refers to a small size, it can be found in different
contexts when a person gives an objective description of a small object. For example, a small
house/plane/group/tree, etc.
Inasmuch as languages differ in the frequency of their occurrence or in the formation, “linguists
have frequently observed that universal statements could be made about semantic aspects of the
diminutive” (Jurafsky, 1993: 423). The connotations identified in diminutive forms are of affective
nature and range from endearment to tenderness on the positive end of the semantics of diminutives;
the negative connotations range from belittlement or deprecation to derogation and insult. When
searching for the areas of usage of diminutives across languages, it seems that the most prominent
one is hypocorisms closely followed by baby talk. This prompts the question what a semantically
central sense of the diminutive construction is. Jurafsky (1993) mentions that the historically and
semantically prior sense of the diminutive is the sense ‘child’, yet adds that most of the extensions of
the category have linkage with the sense ‘small’. This may serve as reasoning why diminutives are so
closely linked with child-centered discourse and why many languages use the diminutive form to
name an offspring of an animal.
Sinclair (1996: 188) mentions that “ the diminutive suffixes combine with any nouns or names
in order to give a more affectionate or familiar form. These words are used by children, by adults
when they want to express affection”. These words are informal: e.g. I'll find out for you, Jeney.
Sam wanted me to take him to see the birdies in the park.

8
 Diminutives can be a shortened form of a name such as Jen (from Jennifer), Dick (from
Richard), Maggie (from Margaret), Suzie (from Suzanne) or Jimmy (from James), or a name
with a diminutive suffix added to it such as Bobby (for Bob), Tommie (for Thomas) (Trask, 2000).
Words like mummy (mom) and daddy (dad) are also common everyday examples of diminutive
forms of nouns.
Diminutives are also sometimes used to shorten long words or phrases in casual speech. Apart
from the expression of a variety of human feelings and their emotive charge, diminutives are also
used to indicate the offspring of animals (e.g. piglet, duckling, gosling)
According to Chamonikolasova and Rambousek (2007), we can distinguish between proper,
frozen, semi-frozen diminutives on the basis of semantic and stylistic criteria.
Proper diminutives are characterized with the possession of semantic and morphological
features and because they express the attitude and feelings of the speaker they are usually used in
informal discourse, e.g. kitty, ringlet, booklet, kitchenette, puppie, lambkin. On the other hand, frozen
diminutives are ‘usually stylistically neutral’.
Frozen diminutives (e.g. cigarette, hodinky) still have morphological features but have lost the
original diminutive meaning.
Semi-frozen diminutives are the third type of diminutives based on stylistic criteria. Semi-
frozen diminutives resemble diminutives proper in that they are less former than the base forms, and
they resemble frozen diminutives in that they are emotionally unmarked and do not necessarily
indicate small size. With semi-frozen diminutives, the opposition base-from-diminutive form still
exists, but it is reduced to the opposition formal-informal.
As diminutive is a term developed in traditional grammar, it is not surprising that prototypical
diminutives are found especially in Latin and languages evolved from Latin or of similar
morphological complexity, i.e. in particular in Spanish, Italian, Romanian languages. At the same
time, diminution is a universal concept, which can be expressed in all languages, including languages
which do not have suffixes, as, for example, Swahili. Therefore, a more general definition of
diminutives is needed, i.e. a definition which does not only cover prototypical cases.
Brief statements upon the thoughts of different scholars make us think that the most common
ways in which diminutives are used are to talk to children, to indicate something is small, to make an
unfavorable condition less so, to give a friendly tone to a sentence, to indicate something is charming
or endearing and to show solidarity.

9
1.2. Formation of English Diminutives
Most often diminutives are formed morphologically, by means of adding a derivational
morpheme (the synthetic diminutive formation), yet analytical forms are also possible. English is an
analytical language, so it is supposed that the analytical type of diminutive formation “is more
characteristic of English than the synthetic type” (Schneider, 2003: 123).
The synthetic type includes prefixation (e.g. mini-cruise, micro-processor), suffixation
(e.g. leaflet, kitten), reduplication (e.g. John-John, goody-goody) and rhyming reduplication
(e.g. Annie-Pannie, Brinnie-Winnie), compounding (e.g. baby tree, dwarf tree) and truncation, which
is a subtype of clipping (e.g. Mike < Michael, Andrew > Andy).
The analytical type uses ‘little’ as a diminutive and not as an adjective of size (e.g. Have a little
cigarette). Many languages apply a grammatical diminutive to nouns, a few – including Dutch, Italian
and Russian for instance – also use it for adjectives. In English, noun diminutives (mainly in the
sense of a smaller version of something) are generally formed by using adjectives.
Suffixation can be considered the most prominent process of diminutive formation, although, the
question about suffixes stirs some controversy. Formation of diminutives by adding suffixes is a
productive part of the English language. Not every case of diminutive suffixation results in
diminutives, but there are two more situations, common in the English language, which violate the
basic rules of prototypical diminution:
a) the base word is a noun;
b) the word class is retained in the process of diminution.
The English language allows having an adjective as the base word. There are two suffixes that
can be attached to adjectives and the word class will remain unchanged: -ish, -y. Examples of this are
yellow > yellowish, blue > bluey.
However, the suffix -y is tricky, because it can cause the change of word class, as in the case of
deadjectival diminutives. Deadjectival diminutives break both conditions formulated above; they are
not nouns before the process of diminution, and after attaching the possible suffixes -y, -ie, they lose
their original word class, as in short > shorty (noun), or cute >] cutie (noun).
To form an English noun diminutive in the synthetic way, specific affixes are attached to the root
of the base word. It is conspicuous that the creation of diminutives by means of suffixation
predominates. Diminutive suffixes contribute to the formation of words with new meanings, which
can refer to the same semantic area of the base word (e.g. pig-piglet, star-starlet) or they can
contribute to semantic changes of the base word (e.g. book-booklet). Diminutives seem to be
morphologically transparent and unambiguous in their nature. However, problems arise during
attempts to compile an exhaustive list of suffixes that function as diminutive markers in the English
language. Various authors list different numbers of diminutive suffixes and treat them according to

10
different criteria, e.g. their origin, productivity, and function. They have different opinions to what
the real diminutive suffixes are and how many exist. Linguists such as Wierzbicka (1985) claims that
the only diminutive is -ie. Hansen (1969) mentions only three suffixes -ie/-y, -ette, -let, Quirk(1985)
identifies -ette, -let and -ling. On the other hand, there has been a significant number of linguists
whose inventory of diminutive suffixes is much bigger, for instance Charleston (1960) made the
inventory of 34 diminutive suffixes, Rotzoll (1910) defines approximately 50 suffixes. Leisi makes
the inventory of diminutive suffixes more accurate. He considers only the two suffixes (-ie and -ette)
productive but makes the list of other 16 other diminutive suffixes and divides them into native (e.
g. -ock, -incel, -ling, -kin, -ie, -en, -k, -t, -le, -el) and foreign (e. g. -el, -rel, -in, -on, -ot, -et,-let).
Schneider (2003) indicates that there are fifteen diminutive suffixes in contemporary English, as
follows: ‘-et’ (cabinet /small private room, falconet /small falcon), ‘-let’ (hamlet/small village,
piglet/young pig), ‘-ie’(auntie), ‘-ette’(kitchenette, pianette, balconette), ‘-kin’ (cannikin/small can,
lambkin /baby lamb), ‘-ling’ (princeling /minor prince), ‘-een’ (girleen/girlie, housemen/ housey),
suffixes that express an attitude and not the dimensions of an object, person: ‘-s’ ( rats/derived from
ratatouille, Debs, ducks, Bugs), ‘-o”(kiddo, Stevio/derived from Steven, Fernando, Antonio), ‘-a’
(Tezza/Teresa, Shazza/Sharon), ‘-er’ (nipper, rugger, topper, fresher), ‘-le’ (cuddle, nibble, knobble) ,
rare suffixes, even in literary work: ‘-poo’, ‘-pop’ ( popsy) , ‘-peg’.
Following the information found in Microsoft’s Encarta Reference Library, it becomes clear that
most of the suffixes quoted above are borrowings from other languages: -ie, -y are of Scottish-Dutch
origin, -ette, -et and -let come from Old French, whereas -kin originates from Middle Dutch and -ling
from Old English.
According to Scheider, most diminutives end in -ie. “Diminutives can be formed from most
types of nominal address terms, but not from pronouns. Diminutive formation is most productive
with first names, and least productive with last names and titles” (2003: 158).
According to Jurafsky (1996), -ie and -y are regarded highly productive, because they relate to
first names like, e.g. Johnny and Jackie, being often monosyllabic, and common nouns like auntie,
thus expressions used to address or talk about people with whom one has good relations. Not less
productive is the suffix -ette which, when attached to the root, can be a sign of a small-size area or
object, like in the case of roomette, i.e. a small sleeping compartment in a railway sleeping car. Also,
there are some seeming diminutive forms, for instance such words as cabinet and toilet, whose
diminutive meaning is either of no importance now or it has totally faded over time.
Prefixation ia another synthetic type of diminutive formation. According to Schneider
(2003), the English language has an inventory of two diminutive prefixes, mini- (mini-series, mini-
skirt, minibus) and micro- (microbiology, microelectronics, microprocessor); the former originating
as a product of clipping from the word ‘miniature’ (Huddleston and Pullum, 1678), and the latter

11
being used exclusively in the technical and scientific terminology, as in ‘microscope’ or
‘microprocessor’, and lacking the evaluative component (Jovanovic, 2014). Albair(2010), however,
lists also the prefixes nano- and pico- .
Huddleston and Pullum (1678) remark that in cases when mini- is also used in the technical field
and attached to the same base word as micro-, formations with micro- result in “a greater degree of
smallness”, e.g. minicomputer and microcomputer.
In several languages, including English, reduplication is a possible way of diminutive formation,
formed by a repetition of the base word. Reduplication can be divided into two types, repetitive and
rhyming reduplication. The usage of both types has the effect of implying endearment and affection
of the speaker to the one they refer to.
Example of the first, repetitive type would be expressions such as ‘John-John’. In the second
type, a rhyme, often semantically empty one, is attached behind the base word, e.g. ‘Annie-Pannie’
(Schneider, 2013).
As opposed to previous types of diminutive formation, truncation is not additive, but a
subtractive one. As Schneider points out, it is a subclass of clipping and it occurs in cases when the
base word is multisyllabic. The process of truncation shortens the base word to a single syllable and
“the syllable which is retained is either the first syllable of the base word or another syllable carrying
primary or secondary stress” ( 2013: 96).
Affective alternations of first names are frequently formed by truncations, resulting in, for
instance, Pat from Patricia, or Liz from Elizabeth. The truncated forms can be further modified by
suffixation, specifically by suffixes -y and -ie: Liz > Lizzie, Pat > Patty.
Analytic diminutive formation is regarded to be the alternate way to express diminution in
English. Such diminutives comprise two components: the base word, i.e. a noun, and an adjective
from the word field ‘small’, serving as the diminutive marker. Usually, it is the adjective little,
especially its weak variant, that is employed. It is positioned next to the left of the base noun and may
be substituted by other synonymous adjectives belonging to the same word field, e.g. tiny, wee or
teeny-weeny. However, the application of these potential synonyms poses a certain problem due to
some stylistic tinge contained in them and their expression of a higher degree of intensity. The
adjective small, which is devoid of affective connotations, cannot operate here as a replacement of
little. ‘Little’ is considered to be rather subjective and expressing affection, while ‘small’ refers
mainly to the actual size (or age) of the object named. Therefore, ‘little’ is used to communicate
one’s attitude, and ‘small’ to express one’s idea of size. Other adjectives, like ‘poor’ and ‘pathetic’,
can also be used, alone or in combination with ‘little’, to express the feeling of sympathy and
affection. Schneider (2003) additionally differentiates between nouns referring to persons, objects
and to abstract nouns and proves in what way the application of the adjectives mentioned above

12
modify the meaning of those nouns. It can be noted that among the examples particularly striking is
the diversity of the adjective little when used in various groups of nouns, e.g.
There goes a little girl. = young
There goes a little lady. = a little girl /expresses appreciation/
He is a little terror. = He is a terrible boy.
A little cigarette? /used in offers and expresses politeness/
In English it is possible that analytic and synthetic markers expressing diminutives merge in one
form, e.g. a little chappie or real lady-like little drinkies.
In English, the objective evaluation of an item being small in size can be expressed in four ways:
1) by using the adjective ‘small’ + a noun (with reference to size);
e.g. a small town/stadium, stone, etc.
2) by using the adjective ‘young’ + a noun (with reference to age);
e.g. a young woman/ bird/ animal, etc.
We can also use the word ‘baby’ + noun to express the idea of diminutiveness and the meaning
of a young;
e.g. baby fly, baby camel, baby boy, baby girl.
3) by using a diminutive lexical word denoting ‘a young bird/animal’;
e.g. sheep-lamb, horse-foal.
4) by using a diminutive suffix meaning ‘a young bird/animal’ or ‘a small object’;
e.g. eagle-eaglet, ball-bullet, goose-gosling, ice-icicle, man-manikin.
Over the years many opinions on forming the diminutives in English have been established.
Charleston characterizes English as an analytic language and claims that the suffixation is not
preferred in formation of diminutives in English, and that the adjectives such as little, tiny or wee are
highly preferred in the forming of English diminutive expressions.
Schneider summarizes the possible adjectives used in diminutive formation and divides them
into the three categories according the formality:
Informal – tiny, teensy, weeny, teeny-weeny
Neutral – small, little
Formal – minute, diminutive, lilliputian
In conclusion, the category of diminutiveness is a linguistic phenomenon not very common in
British English but there are certainly ways to express most of the diminutive meanings which can
be found in other languages. Although English opts for analytic diminutive formation, it also allows
of synthetic diminutive formation and in some contexts synthetic diminutive forms are preferably
used.

13
Chapter II. Diminutives as an Expression of Emotiveness in a Text
2.1.Diminutive Meaning in Children’s Literature
The use of diminutives can easily be observed in baby-talk language or in informal language,
but they are not well received in the context of a solemn, serious tone, that lacks affectation and
mannerism. A great Romanian literary critic and academician, Titu Maiorescu, believed that
diminutives were “the contagious viciousness of which most of the Romanian poems suffer; those
who get rid of the debauchery of ideas die of diminutive illness” or simply “forms of linguistic
decadence”. Moreover, he also believed that diminutives were a form of mockery due to the fact that
they would be the proof of effeminacy, softness of the spirit, or a grotesque tendency to miniaturize
everything. Nevertheless, this form of expressing feelings or ironies can be retrieved anywhere in the
everyday language, especially in the familiar, informal one, in the Internet messages and even in the
press. For defining the illocutionary force of diminutives in a specific pragmatic context, it is relevant
to analyze them from the perspective of the speech act theory, which views speaking as a purposeful
use of language by interlocutors according to certain rules and with the aim of maintaining
communication. Diminutive-based directives are intended to persuade the addressee that there is less
effort to be made by the hearer for performing an action. The assumption that the minimization of the
speaker’s benefit occurs together with the minimization of the hearer’s efforts (Schneider, 2003) is
disputable.
The construction with the diminutive in (1) contains an explicit indirect directive, which is
conventionally implemented. It demonstrates that there is a minimization of the hearer’s efforts and
maximization of the speaker’s benefit:
1) And you will see me do it if you will be so kind as to bandage me up first. It would be a
great favour to me if you do this little thing, sirs. (Dahl, The wonderful story of Henry Sugar
and Six More 2000: 107)
The efforts required for performing the action are regarded as ‘unimportant’, ‘not-so-hard’ and
therefore acceptable to the addressee. Therefore, we suggest that in (2) in the dialogue context with
two suppositive sentences and the adverb timidly, the diminutive-related directive can be aimed at
minimising the imposition on the addressee and downgrading the threat to his/her face:
2) “Do not be worried,” said the old man of the dog timidly. “Does she bark?” said Lizzie with
worry anyway. “Not at little children,” said the old man. (Johnston, A Small Thing…but Big
2016: 18)
The internal diminutive in (3), which is formed analytically and performs the syntactic function
of the direct object, is as a rule used for this purpose (Schneider 2003: 64):

14
 3)This one’ll be as easy as pie! All we have to do is dig another little tunnel from here to there.
(Dahl, Fantastic Mr Fox 2009: 44)
In (4), illocution of directive and commissive is evident in this speech act, and the diminutive
serves as a means of minimizing the number of efforts, which the addresser demands from the
addressee. If a synthetic diminutive is used as the direct object, it will function as a strategy of
positive politeness for expressing positive attitudes (Schneider 2003:164):
4)‘Now don’t over-excite yourself, Grandpa,’ Mrs. Bucket said. ‘And don’t fluster poor Charlie.
We all try to keep calm.’ (Dahl, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator 1995: 72)
In (4), the synthetic diminutive Charlie is amplified by the analytical form poor, which the
addresser-granny used in order to express positive and favourable attitude towards the referent-
grandson.
According to Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi (1994: 235), the strategies of positive politeness
are based on the assumption that interlocutors have common desires. Consequently, diminutives can
serve as the markers of group identity lessening the psychological distance and increasing familiarity
and intimacy of communication. Diminutives can function as positive politeness strategies, expressing
readiness for consent and avoiding disagreement, seeking for what the participants of the speech act
have in common:
5) ‘We must go down and take a look at our little friends before we do anything else,’ said Mr.
Wonka. He pressed a different button, and the lift dropped lower, and soon it was hovering
just above the entrance gates to the factory. (Dahl, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
1995: 181)
In (6), the diminutive telly concerns the communicative conduct of the mother, who wants her
daughter to stay at home. Meanwhile, she goes out with her friends.
6) ‘What if I can’t get to sleep?’ ‘Then watch the telly, like I said.’ (Wilson, The Dare Game
2001: 189)
If the diminutive form within the clause performs the syntactic function of the indirect object,
then, it is formed synthetically in order to express the speaker’s attitude toward a specific referent and
to signal close relationships between the speaker and the addressee (Schneider 2003: 164) rather than
to function as a means of downgrading and threatening face. Diminutive forms, which perform the
syntactic function of the indirect object, are local. As such, they implement the strategy of positive
politeness (7):
7) ‘So you go creeping along the bank until you see a big one – and you come up behind him
– and you lie down on your tummy – and then slowly, very slowly, you lower your hand
into the water behind him…’ (Dahl, Danny the Champion of the World 1998: 76)

15
 Children’s prose has its peculiarities, which are perceived on linguistic, compositional and genre
levels. Diminutives in children’s prose always involve expressive content and it is the context where
language emotiveness is fully implemented because, according to Schneider (2013: 145), “diminutive
meaning crucially depends on the context and situation in which a diminutive is used”. As a result, the
author’s speech performs the function of expressing emotions, commenting on and interpreting their
causes and effects. This is true for English prose for children, which includes a great number of
diminutives in the author’s and characters’ speech, and, furthermore, both synthetic and analytical
markers of expressive meaning account for important constituents in the study of diminutive
nominations.
Sometimes, in order to reach a desired stylistic effect the author may even deliberately overload
the text with diminutives. For example, in the short story Teeny-tiny Joseph Jacobs (2009) used the
lexeme teeny-tiny 59 times. In fact, every noun (teeny-tiny woman, teeny-tiny church, teeny-tiny gate,
teeny-tiny bed), even some adverbs (teeny-tiny further, teeny-tiny louder) and participles (teeny-tiny
frightened) acquire a diminutive meaning. Every fifth word in this short story changed its meaning
under the influence of the modifier teeny-tiny. The author “diminished” the size of all the objects and
personages irrespective of their initial size: e.g. teeny-tiny village – teeny-tiny churchyard – teeny-tiny
woman – teeny-tiny bed – teeny-tiny bone. In the story, the diminutive serves as the main stylistic
device employed by the author for creating a fairy-tale effect, namely for molding a diminished world
with diminished objects in children’s imagination (1):
(1) And when this teeny-tiny woman had got into the teeny-tiny churchyard, she saw a teeny-
tiny bone on a teeny-tiny grave, and the teeny-tiny woman said to her teeny-tiny self, ‘This
teeny-tiny bone will make me some teeny-tiny soup for my teeny-tiny supper.’ (Jacobs,
Teeny-tiny 2009: 39)
The author chooses the lexeme teeny-tiny formed by means of an echo-word formation, which
emphasizes diminution. However, the term is combined both with names of objects to denote their
smallness (teeny-tiny village, teeny-tiny woman), and with abstract nouns or nouns of material (teeny-
tiny time, teeny-tiny self, teeny-tiny soup).
Thus, the aim of the author is not only to set diminutive forms and the diminutives’ denotative
meaning of smallness within particular contexts but also, first and foremost, to express secondary uses
of the diminutive, namely the connotative meaning of emotiveness in order to make the text less
serious and to strengthen positive emotions of the listener.

16
2.2. Expressive Use of Diminutives in Social Media Contexts
According to Crystal (2001), since the times of Shakespeare, nothing has affected the English
language on such a great scale as the invention of the Internet and the spread of its usage. This new
hybrid medium effectively wipes away the borders between written and spoken communication
which have sparked something that Crystal describes as “a language revolution”.
The language found on the Internet is characteristic by its flexibility and openness towards the
usage of nonstandard grammar and vocabulary, foreign cultural and linguistic elements introduced
by non-native speakers of English. Further the usage of diminutives in the Internet, namely in
Twitter, is presented.
Interjections that have the diminutive -y/-ie suffix, such as whoopsie, wowie and owie, occur
extremely rarely in most written sources. A brief survey of Google Books and online newspapers
shows a striking lack of such forms. Similarly, a corpus search of the Corpus of Historical
American English (COHA, 2010) or the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA, 2008)
on average brings up fewer than five hits per item. However, data from the microblogging service
Twitter suggests that ‘diminutive’ forms of interjections (henceforth DIs) are used not as
infrequently in written language as might have been previously thought, as is seen in the following
examples in (1) from Twitter:
(1) a. Bosses love it when you show up a half hour late and just say "whoopsie."
b. Wowee I got so much more positive feedback on that iggy thing than I thought like I'm
blown away haha.
In previous studies of diminutives and interjections, DIs have received little attention.
Schneider (2003) mentions oh goodie as a diminutive form of an interjection, but concentrates
instead on an exhaustive study of synthetic diminutives formed from nouns. Barbaresi (2002)
mentions the -ie suffix as a class-changing feature and gives good > goody as an example of the
suffix creating a DI. DIs have also been mentioned briefly in other research, most often linking DIs
to child speech and jazz jargon. Although considerably lower in frequency than their base
interjections, the various forms of DIs raise questions regarding their meanings and functions in
English tweets posted on Twitter. DIs are used as linguistic devices to display emotion in various
Twitter contexts. They often appear as internet slang and humorously or satirically, conveying both
positive and negative connotations, which may explain the reason for the exclusion of these features
from newspapers and formal speech. For this study, diminutives whoopsy, whoopsies, oopsy,
oopsies, owie, ouchies and wowie (along with orthographic variants) are included due to frequency.
They are formed from two main parts: the base interjection (e.g., wow, whoops) and the diminutive
suffix (e.g.,-y/-ie). When interjections and the diminutive suffix are put together to form a DI, they
form highly emotive terms that are typically used in more casual contexts such as Twitter to

17
display multiple emotive meanings. Founded in 2006, Twitter is a large data mine for innovative
forms. Researchers have analyzed Twitter from various angles, such as emotion (Zappagivna,
2011), but to date they have not used it to analyze interjections or diminutives.
The humorous DIs on Twitter are usually quite clearly indicated due to their close proximity
to smiley faces, emoticons or other similar cotext. In the following examples diminutives indicate
the tweets’ positive/humorous connotations.
(2) a. Just got home and it seems like I didnt missed any updates today wowie ☺
b. I look like I’ve been punched in the face somewhat because of sun burn… whoopsy
c. Should be cleaning and doing laundry but I'm catching up with Matt and Kayleigh
instead... Oopsie
Examples (2a) suggests that wowie functions as a humorous, positive and slightly playful
response in some contexts. Here, the tweet displays appreciation that the tweeter did not miss any
updates during her absence. In examples (2b-c), the DIs whoopsy and oopsie are employed as
playful words to diminish the message of the preceding sentence. They portray a painful or
embarrassing mistake, either accidental or deliberate, as a humorous event or outcome (e.g. one’s
appearance after getting a sunburn in). Example (2c) differs from the first two examples as it does
not necessarily refer to a mistake but illustrates the tweeter’s abandonment of her task of cleaning
and doing her laundry, to converse with friends instead. The tweet then ends with oopsie, which
implies that the situation is the result of a humorous, yet deliberate, choice that may later have
negative repercussions. Likewise, in Twitter conversation, the DIs convey emotive meanings
identified by the frequent collocate ‘lol’ or cotext with laughter illustrated by ‘haha’. For example,
in (3a) the two female tweeters discuss a final exam and end their conversation with the collocation
‘lol whoopsies’.
(3) Soooo tired, really not feeling this SAT
@username1 at wood?
@username2 Yeeeeep
@username1 I feel like death. It’s too early for a final! I’m just chilling in the parking lot lol
@username2 Why are you already there?! Lol I’m still in bed
@username1 I went to 7-11 faster than I thought. Lol whoopsies
The example also demonstrates the changing of attitude as conversation progresses. By starting
on a negative subject but ending on a more positive note, the example illustrates how conversation
progresses from a negative attitude to a humorous and positive tone in the final tweet.
It has been argued that base interjections “request or provoke empathy and as manifestations
of empathy they contribute once again to the emotional harmony essential to cooperative
conversations” (Gunthner, 1997). Although Gunthner chooses the term ‘empathy’, the statement is

18
particularly pertinent to the display of affection in example (4). In example (4), the DI whoopsie is
one linguistic device used to re-establish the two tweeters’ emotional harmony that is jeopardized
throughout the conversation.
(4) Tessa can tweet a pic of my head in a garbage and me gagging but I can’t of her doing
the duck face
@username1 hahaha maybe you shouldn’t drink too much next time
@username2 I’m never drinking with again, there
@username1 I got puke on my hands for putting your hair up for you don’t even go there
@username2 aw whoopsie love u!
The DI whoopsie conveys affection which functions as a self-repair of the tweeter’s preceding
negative comment. The connotations of the DI are emphasized by the words directly preceding and
following whoopsie, specifically ‘aw’ and ‘love’. Although the tweeters do not include emoticons,
the conversation and the last tweeter’s turn indicates familiarity and playfulness and serves to re-
establish the tweeters’ mutual positive feelings towards each other.
As we have seen, DIs can be considered to mitigate a problem’s potential seriousness, and also
establish an emotionally cooperative conversation. Similarly, DIs can convey a strong sense of
empathy and solidarity between tweeters, particularly through the DI ouchies. In example (5), the
two tweeters discuss their injuries and growing old, particularly shown through the cotext of several
hashtags, namely #gettingold, #mywholebodyhurts, #oldstatus and #getbetter. The DI ouchies
functions mainly as a marker of empathy towards the other’s injuries. This meaning is made evident
through the message following the DI and the use of the hashtag #getbetter. Specifically, the
tweeter follows the initial ouchies with a comment on how she ‘hates’ plantar fasciitis and then
proceeds to negatively comment on the condition and her own similar problems, which establishes
an emotional connection between the two tweeters.
(5) Two injuries in the past week… Im not a spring chicken anymore according to my doc.
#gettingold #mywholebodyhurts
@username1 nooooo!!!! What injuries?
@username2 plantar fasciitis. My doc fixed that this week and now my lower back.
@username1 ouchies. I hate plantar fasciitis. Mine pops ups a lot during season. #oldstatus
#getbetter haha
@username2 right. Sucks getting old! haha
@username1 how do the pros do it? Lol
The DIs are used to show sympathy and shared pain in other conversations, as is shown in
examples (6).
(6) My lobster red back tells me I might have caught the sun today…maybe suncream would

19
have been appropriate!
@username1 whoopsie #ouch
@username2 haha yeah, not the smartest move! Worst part is it was a strappy dress, so
now I have criss-cross marks across my back lmao
@username1 oh dear!
In example (6) the topic marker #ouch follows whoopsie to signal that whoopsie is a comment
on the previously-mentioned sunburn. Example (6) displays a relatively humorous, sympathetic
message that is continued in the following tweet that contains emotive gestures including ‘haha
yeah’. Thus, the DIs display a certain amount of empathy; specifically, ‘gestures’ such as
crying/playful emoticons increase emotive loading.
Extensive exaggeration/force most often appears with wowie and, less frequently, owie. Many
examples involve combinations of DIs (e.g., owie wowie), lengthening through repetition of sound
(e.g., owwwie), exclamation marks (e.g.,!!!wowie!!!), capitalization (e.g.,WOWIE) or combinations
with the base in terjections or other interjections (e.g.,wowie wow wow). These features emphasize
the emotion conveyed by the base interjection; they also lower the register (e.g., compare owwwie
wowie with ow wow). Several examples of these visual effects, excluding ‘oopsy daisy’ and such
lexicalized phrases, are shown in examples (7a-e).
(7) a. Canoeing definitely makes your booty sore. Owwwie wowie. Plus sunburn. I'm in great shape.
b. Abby and Phoebe are amazing wow wowie amazing graze
c. @username !!!!!!!!!!!!!wowie!!!!!!!!!!!!
d. OWIE OWIE OH OH I WISH WE WERE OLDER~
e. @username is literally so sweet wowie wow people who hate on you are mega assholes and
don't realize how amazing you truly are
The examples demonstrate how DIs are repeated or other forms of intensification added to
increase the emotive meaning, particularly in owie owie or wowie wow wow. In example (7a), the
DI owie is lengthened with the repetition of ‘w’ to display an intensification of the pain caused by
canoeing and sunburn. The addition of the repeated interjection oh in example (8d) adds emotional
force to the tweeter’s wish to be older. Furthermore, one other prominent feature of these examples
are collocations of the DIs: phrases such as ‘so sweet’ with the intensifier ‘so’ add to the force of
the tweet’s message; ‘how amazing’ adds to the display of amazement. Thus, we can observe that
the tweets convey emotions with more force than is expressed by the DI alone.
Several, albeit rare, examples use capital letters on the suffix to exaggerate DI meaning, as
shown in (8a-b).
(8) a. @username1 @username2 he is so attractive wowEE im going to take this as a
compliment

20
 b. @username heart eyes woWIE
So, the meaning of the base interjection and the non-serious feature of the suffix are combined
with repetition to intensify the emotive loading. Furthermore, the examples are generally positive
(expressing surprise and amazement as in), which correlates with the striking lack of DIs in tweets
that display strong negative attitude.
Many tweeters consciously break maxims of politeness to produce a negative pragmatic
effect. Examples (9a-d) appear to convey negative humor due to discontent with the idea, action or
circumstance described, thus making the use of wowee somewhat sarcastic. Unless the tweeter
explicitly tags the tweet as sarcastic, it can be difficult to differentiate between sarcasm and
negative attitude. Only in (9d) the tweeter uses the hashtag #sarcasm to confirm that the tweet
displays a sarcastic attitude about the temperature predicted by the weather forecast.
(9) a. wowee love negative feelngs at 4 am
b. wowie, look at all the rain we didn't get
c. Wowee I love panic attacks
d. Wowie... cool front coming thru on Saturday night. All the way down to...83.
Despite the examples given in this subsection, it wasn’t possible to find many obvious displays
of sarcasm, particularly in conversations. In most cases, the DIs express positive humor. It may be
argued that most DIs have a potential for some hidden or subtle sarcasm that cannot be easily
detected, if at all. In some cases, only the conversing tweeters may have the common knowledge to
detect the humor.
Thus, although inconclusive due to lack of data, we can make the suggestion that interjections
can be considered forms of diminutives, based on the notion that diminutives do not necessarily
have to convey smallness but other features primarily including ‘non-seriousness’. Based on top
words and hashtags, the quantitative results seemed to suggest that DIs are more likely used to
convey positive humour including playfulness and affection, negative humour including
sarcasm/irony, and semi-serious connotations.

21
 Conclusion

All things considered it is possible to draw the following conclusions:

-Diminutives are one of the most important expressive resources in English. With the aid of
diminutives English can render various shades of expressiveness and subjective colouring:
tenderness, affection, delight, friendly attitude, irony, scorn, contempt, flattery, consideration and
familiarity. All the definitions given by different scholars have one main thing in common, the words
classified according to these definitions as diminutives denote the smallness of the neutral words with
positive or negative connotations.
- The primary meaning of diminutives is baby talk and secondary meaning – endearing address
forms and establishing intimacy in English. English diminutives tend to be shorter than their base
forms and rather colloquial in style; they are absent from the speech of news presenters or from other
general-viewer-oriented situations.
- Though English diminutives are employed only in informal language and in baby talk, their
usage and presence is undeniable and makes proof of the fact that the diminutive is a well -
represented conceptual category in English.
- In modern English, in connection with the development of expressive resources, a tendency
towards the more widespread use of diminutive forms is to be noted. From the conversational style,
diminutives spread more and more into literature and there they are used not merely as a means of
stylization or linguistic characterization of the dramatis personae, but also in the author 's own
words.
- The majority of diminutives is created by derivational processes, i.e. synthetically. Though, as
it appears, analytic formations are far from being rare, and a combination of both types is possible, as
well. In English, whose inflectional system is practically non-existent, the meaning of diminution is
achieved via analytic constructions with attributively used adjectives belonging to the word field
‘small’. There are a couple of diminutive suffixes, indeed, but they collocate only with a certain
number of nouns, which testifies to little productivity of the synthetic method. Backed by numerous
examples, it can probably safely be concluded in spite of distinguishing the category of noun
diminutives, the synthetic way of forming them, regarded as prototypical, is evidently less developed
in English.
- The study of diminutives shows that they can present not only linguistic but also culture-
related aspects. Diminutives are more than their semantic meanings, they reflect the unique culture of
a language, the writer’s individual conceptualization of words, the speaker’s preferences. At the core
of diminutives lies a deeply embedded cultural worldview.
- A number of different meanings and functions for the diminutives were found, along with

22
varying levels of emotive connotations. The diminutives were shown to convey positive humour
including playfulness and affection, negative humour including sarcasm/irony, and semi-serious
connotations. Based on top words and hashtags, the quantitative results seemed to suggest that
diminutives were more likely used in a positive, humorous context or semi-serious rather than an
overtly negative context. The examples suggest that tweeters include diminutives consciously in
order to create a sense of solidarity, exaggeration and generally much play.
Concluding the work we can state that the standard lexicon of the English language is rich in
diminutives, and innovative in the distribution of diminutive meanings. It has been possible to
challenge the common myth that English is an unproductive language with respect to diminutives, a
myth that stems from the firmly rooted tradition of introspection-based diminutive research.

23
 Bibliography

1. Albair, J. The State of Evaluative Affixes in Contemporary English. New York: Journal of
Experimental Psychology, 2010, 36 p.
2. Barbaresi, M.L. The Pragmatics of the Diminutive –y/ie Suffix in English. Torino:
University of Pisa, 2001, 23 p.
3. Bratus, B.V. The Formation and Expressive Use of Diminutives. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1969, 168 p.
4. Cap, P. Schneider K. P. Diminutives in English. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004, pp.
484-486.
5. Carroll, L. Alice´s Adventures in Wonderland. London:Ilustration John Tenniel. Boson Book,
1996, 34 p.
6. Chamonikolasová, J., Rambousek, J. Diminutive Expressions in Translation: A Comparative
Study of English and Czech. Amsterdam: Belgian Journal of Linguistics.John Benjamin
Publishing Company, 2007, 39 p.
7. Charleston, B.M. Studies on the Emotional and Affective Means of Expression in Modern
English. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1960, 123 p.
8. Chłopicki, W. In and out of English. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 200598 p.
9. Crystal, D. Language and the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, 150 p.
10. Dabašinskienė, I. Intimacy, Familiarity and Formality: Diminutives in Modern English.
Lituanus: Large Print, 2009, p 17.
11. Dahl, O. Diminutives and Augmentatives. Concise Encyclopedia of Semantics. Boston: Elsevier,
2006, 219.
12. Davies, M. The Corpus of Historical American English. Washington: American Psychological
Association, 2010, 125 p.
13. Dressler, W.U., Barbaresi, M. L. Morphopragmatcs: Diminutives and Intensifyers in English,
German and other Languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1994, 153p.
14. Gooch, A. Diminutive, Augmentative and Pejorative Suffixes in Modern English. A Guide to their
Use and Meaning. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1970, pp.2-3.
15. Grabias, S. Sociolinguistic perspectives on the study of language expressiveness. Paris: Large
Print,1988, p 37.
16. Grandi, N. Renewal and Innovation in the Emergence of Indo-European Evaluative
Morphology. Diminutives and Augmentatives in the Languages of the World, London: Routledge
Press , 2011, p. 137.

24
17. Gunthner, M. The Language of Emotions: Conceptualization, Expression, and Theoretical
Foundation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1997, p.241.
18. Haas, M.R. The Expression of the Diminutive. Studies in Linguistics. The Hague: Mouton, 1972,
148 p.
19. Hanssen, J.S. English Diminutives. A semantic study. University Bergen, Springer-Verlag, 1969.
156 p.
20. Huddleston, R. and Pullum, G. K. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002, 128 p.
21. Jespersen, O. Growth and Structure of the Language. New York: Free Press, 1948, p. 9.
22. Jovanović, V.Z. Morphological Means of Expressing Value Judgement in English and Serbian.
Values Across Cultures and Times. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014, p. 33.
23. Jurafsky, D. Universal Tendencies in the Semantics of the Diminutive. Pittsburgh: Carnegie
Mellon University, 1996, pp. 423-534.
24. Kaproń-Charzyńska, I. Pragmatic Aspects of Word Formation: The Expressive and the Poetic
Function. Lituanus: Large Print, 2001, 56 p.
25. Leisi, E. The Word Content: Its Structure in German and English. Heidelberg: Quelle und Meyer,
1969, 228 p.
26. Liseling Nilsson, S.A. Cultural Code and Translation Based on Selected Works. Stockholm: US-
AB.2012, p. 123.
27. Lubaś, W. English Talk. Basic Features and Functions of the Colloquial English Language.
Opole: Publisher of the University of Opole, 2003, p. 181.
28. Peprník, J. English Lexicology. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého Olomouci, 2006, pp. 116-117.
29. Podracki, J.Colloquial Language elements in the English Language of Internet and Television. M.:
Publisher of the University of Silesia, 2012, p. 180.
30. Quirk, R. A. A Comprehensive Grammmar of the English Language, New York: Cognitive Brain
Research, 1985, 220 p.
31. Rotzoll, E. Diminutives in the New English with Special Consideration of the Dialects:
Heidelberd: Winter,1910, 96 p.
32. Schneider, K.P. Diminutives in English. Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2003, pp. 1-9, 75, 93-94, 123,
158, 226-227, 324.
33. Schneider, K.P. 2013. The Truth about Diminutives: Some Theoretical and Methodological
Considerations. London, SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics, 2013, 116 p.
34. Sifianou, M. The Use of Diminutives in Expressing Politeness: Journal of Pragmatics, 1992 pp.
157-158.

25
35. Sinclair, J. An International Project in Multilingual Lexicography. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998,
139 p.
36. Skubalanka, T.The Expressiveness of Language and Colloquial Speech: Ossolineum publishing
house, 1973, pp.180-181.
37. Taylor, J.R. Linguistic Categorization Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics. Oxford: OUP Oxford,
2003, p.312
38. Trask, R.L. Dictionary of English Grammar, United Kingdom: Penguin, 2001, 256 p.
39. Wierzbicka, A. Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: The Semantics of Human Interaction. Berlin: Volta
Press, 1991, p.35.
40. Wierzbicka, A. Different Cultures, Different Languages, Different Speech Acts. Nuremberg:
Journal of Pragmatics, 1985, 98 p.
41. Wierzbicka, A. Diminutives and Depreciatives: Semantic Representation for Derivational
Categories. Berlin: Tabor Press ,1984, 136 p.
42. Zappavigna, M. Discourse of Twitter and Social media. London: Bloomsbury, 2011,85 p.
43. Zgołkowa, H. Expressive Lexicography as a Distinctive feature of the Colloquial Variation of
Contemporary English. Opole: Publisher of the University of Opole, 1991, p. 49.

26