Abstract. The acquisition of Lithuanian noun diminutives was studied in this paper. The preliminary results were based on the tape-recorded data of one child from the age of 1;7 to 2;6. Quantitative as well as qualitative data on the acquisition of noun diminutives will be presented and discussed. A very close parallel between the mother’s and the child’s use of diminutives was discovered. This study revealed that the acquisition of Lithuanian diminutives starts early and from the very beginning the child uses a big number of these forms and does that in a very qualitative way.

 1. The data

    The analysis is based on the recordings of one Lithuanian girl, named Rūta, the first-born and the only child of a middle-class parents, living in Vilnius. Rūta’s speech was recorded in natural everyday situations by her mother, as educated philologist. Data collection started in November 1993 when the child was 1;3.14 and had been continued up to February 1996 when she was 3;7. Rūta’s onset of speech can be dated approximately around the age of 1;7. The speech was transcribed by the girl’s mother according to CHILDES (Child Language Data Exchange System) format, as elaborated by MacWhinney and Snow (1990).

 2. Lithuanian diminutives

   All the nouns of the Lithuanian language fall into two groups according to their word formation pattern: simple and formations. The latter are used more frequently. Most of the formations are derived words and only small part of them are compounds.

   The most frequent derivatives are those made with the help of suffixes.

   Nouns, adjectives, verbs as well as some other parts of speech serve as basic words for suffix derivation.

   When a noun is used for the purpose the result is several semantic noun groups. The most frequent are diminutives, the topic of the paper.

   A diminutive is a term used in morphology to refer to an affix with the general meaning of “small, little”. Their formant is a suffix which performs the function of meaning modification. Usually suffix adds semantic features of quantitative and/ or qualitative nature.

   Diminutives can be not only nouns, but some other parts of speech as well. Here we shall confine ourselves only to the noun diminutives.

   The assumption is that suffixation does not cause a new concept formation but only modifies the old one. Therefore different suffixes added to the same noun only give slight stylistic changes of meaning such as endearment, pleasure or pejoration.

   Diminutives are suffixed derivations of basic nouns denoting more or less the same item as expressed by the basic noun. Nevertheless diminutives in Lithuanian as in many other languages denote difference in size (more often smaller than bigger) and in emotional evaluation (ranging from highest and lowest estimation) (Ulvydas,1965: 253).

   This definition of diminutives is more wide than the usual one as it comprises not only meliorative diminutives (denoting smallness), but also so called amplificatives (denoting augmentativiness) and pejoratives (denoting pejorativness). Augmentatives and pejoratives are not numerous in Lithuanian besides they are difficult to detect due to the same derivative suffixes usually but not always used for diminutive word formation.

   Meliorative diminutives can be used ironically to denote the opposite notion of augmentativness or pejorativness in a specific context, e.g. Koks namelis - DIM - dangų remia. ‘What a house - DIM - real skyscraper.’

   The same holds good for the evaluative features of meaning. Originally positive diminutives can be used to denote negative attitude, e.g. Koks tėvelis - DIM, toks sūnelis - DIM. ‘Sun - DIM takes after his father - DIM (Inherits negatives traits of his father character)’.

   Noun diminutives provide the largest group of suffixed derivatives. Semantically this group consists of the names of dear persons, animals, objects of everyday life. They are not restricted to the names of physical entities; nouns denoting more abstract entities can also be diminutivized.

   The greatest quantity and variety of diminutives can be found in folklore and a smaller amount of diminutives is used in the emotional colloquial style.

   Distinctive feature of the Lithuanian language is morphologically unrestrictive formation of diminutives from any noun with the help of one or several suffixes at a time.

   Now we’ll discuss the meaning of diminutive suffixes. The fact is that diminutive’s morphemes are used not only to indicate the small size of an entity, but also to express various other kinds of meaning.

   The most frequent suffixes of diminutive formation are -elis, -ė (senelis, senelė - a grandfather, a grandmother), -ėlis, -ė (dobilėlis - a clover, nugarėlė - a back), -(i)ukas, -ė (šuniukas - a dog, gerviukė - a crane), -utis, -ė (kiškutis - a hare, pievutė - a meadow), -ytis, -ė (brolytis - a brother, mergytė - a girl) and others.

   Mostly nouns with these suffixes do not express only the small size, they have affective meaning, showing that the denoted object cause positive emotions and admiration. This meaning usually can be found in the names of living beings or plants and used to express speaker’s sympathy, endearment, pity (A.Paulauskienė, 1994: 66).

   From the viewpoint of word formation diminutives with the suffix -elis,-ė are most frequent, but less diverse. They are derived from two-syllabic nouns while other suffixes can be added to two- or multisyllabic nouns. All the diminutives retain the gender of the basic noun.

   The diminutives with the suffix -(i)ukas, -ė are more often than others used with the names of children or bird and animal offspring. In this case noun derivatives can be viewed not as diminutives with the meaning “young” but as derivatives of belonging and origin (kačiukas - a cat, žvirbliukas - a sparrow, varniukas - a crow) (Ulvydas, 1965:268).

   Diminutives with the suffix -(i)ukas, -ė most often are derived from masculine nouns. Feminine nouns are not so frequent.

   The consonant, immediately proceeding this suffix, in the standard Lithuanian is usually soft, though consonant pronunciation of some diminutives can have both forms, e.g. akmenukas - akmeniukas ‘a stone’, pilvukas - pilviukas ‘a stomach’, tiltukas - tilčiukas ‘a bridge’.

   Diminutives with the suffix -ytis, -ė, though not numerous, are exclusively used in the descriptions of children or topics related with their surroundings. They usually combine both meanings of smallness and affection (this is common for the other suffixes as well) for the nomination of concrete objects and persons. Differently from the above mentioned diminutives with suffix -(i)ukas, -ė, which is mostly used for masculine nouns, suffix -ytis, ė are of feminine gender and retain it from the basic noun ( duonytė - a bread, lovytė - a bed, kojytė - a leg, mamytė - a mother).

   There is also evidence for semantic differentiation amongst the different suffixes. Suffixes -(i)ukas, -ė and -ytis, -ė tend to be associated with a greater degree of smallness than the other diminutive suffixes.

Diminutives with the suffixes -užis, -ė; -okšnis,-ė; -ušis,-ė; -ėzas; -ikė; -iotė and many others (in Lithuanian there are about 80 diminutives suffixes) can be found only in folklore or dialects. Their meanings of smallness and/or affection are supplemented with the pejorative shades of meaning.

   All the above mentioned diminutives contain only one suffix. Multiple diminutivization is also possible. Diminutives with three, four or even more suffixes can be found. A word with six suffixes - puodelaitukėlytėlis (a cup) - is known from the folk tales. Such words are rare in everyday usage. They are more common in folklore and esp. folksongs.

   Diminutives with two suffixes are quite common in the standard Lithuanian, e.g. dalelytė - a part, žmogeliukas - a man, tėveliukas - a father, mamytėlė - a mother. Double suffixation reinforce the effectiveness of the diminutive meaning.

   Many diminutivized forms in Lithuanian and in other languages as well have a tendency to acquire the status of independent lexical items, with more or less specialised meanings, e.g. vamzdelis - a tube, darželis - a kindergarten, ragelis - a phone receiver. Taylor was right saying that “deminutivization thus becomes an important means whereby a language can extend its lexicon” (1990: 148).

 3. Lithuanian diminutives in child and child-directed speech

   A quantitative and qualitative development of diminutives will be discussed in this section. We’ll compare the usage of diminutives in child and input languages trying to define how different or close they are.

 3.1. Quantitative analysis

    The quantitative progression of the diminutives can be noticed from the very beginning of recordings (See Table 1).

 Table 1: Quantitative development of Rūta’s diminutives types/tokens 

   At first Rūta starts with 3 diminutives (14 tokens) and reaches the maximum of 111 (627 tokens) at the age of 2;2. Thus, we can say that quantitative development was quite regular. The material reveals a few interesting facts. The usage of diminutives had strongly increased in a month’s time: from 14 till 110 and this happened when the child was 1;8. It is important to mention here that the spurt of the simplicia starts only in a month. When the girl is 1;8, she uses 33/223 simplex nouns, and when she is 1;9 - 112/665. She chooses the diminutives instead of the simplicia for her first vocabulary formation. The preference of the diminutives seems to be not a very common phenomenon in child language, but this is the case for Lithuanian girl. Thus, Rūta learns a lot of words in the first two starting months of her speaking. She increases her vocabulary in two periods: firstly by diminutives, secondly by simplex nouns. From the age of 1;7 till 2;6 we observe some other interesting developments. We have already mentioned vocabulary enrichment in 1;8 and 1;9. And now we would like to draw attention to the periods 1;10 and 2;2. There is noticeable increase of tokens (See Table 1). That should mean that the girl started to recognise, to understand and to use new words independently. If we compare diminutives with the total number of nouns (types and tokens), we’ll see that diminutives (types) are used more or less equally - about 40% of all the nouns, but the usage of word forms increases considerably in 2;2 and remains quite high all the period - from 70% till 50%. That shows that the girl till the age of 2;6 uses more diminutives than simplex nouns. Unless we have compared this data to the one from other Lithuanian children it is hard to say whether is a specific feature of Lithuanian children and their mothers at the beginning of language acquisition, or it is just the individual pattern of this particular girl.

   In the case of this child it’s not very hard to explain such a high percentage of diminutive usage. We know that mothers use a lot of diminutive derivatives in child directed speech. The frequency of diminutive usage in the speech Rūta’s mother is surprisingly high. If we look at Figure 1, we see that in the period of 1;7, her mother used more that 65% of the diminutives in comparison with simplicia (the girl used 21%). This is the highest level in all the data. In the age of 1;8 mother and Rūta use 50% of diminutives and from 1;9 onwards, the child uses diminutives quite regularly - around 40% of word forms in comparison with all noun word forms. In Rūta’s case the process of diminutive acquisition starts very early and it reaches the level of the mother’s rate almost from the very beginning. In Figure 1 we can see the proportion of diminutives relative to the number of nouns in Rūta’s and her mother’s speech. It seems that after 1;8, i.e. onset of productive usage of diminutives, and later the girl uses a lot of these word forms (around 40%) and the level is not lower than the level of child mother’s usage of diminutives. Moreover, sometimes this level is a little bit higher than the mother’s level.

Figure 1: Percentage of diminutive tokens in Rūta’s and her mother’s speech.

   How to explain the motivation of diminutive usage in Rūta’s and mother’s speech? Why do they use so many of these forms? And, why are they used so often?

   The mother’s rate of the diminutives could be explained in terms of pragmatics . She wants to express love, endearment and other warm feelings towards her child. It is hard always to agree with Ferguson famous “baby talk as simplified register” (1977: 209-235), since it is not always that mothers’ trying to simplify their speech reflects the reality (Pine, 1994: 15-37). In the case of the Lithuanian language the usage of diminutives is not an ease for a child to understand adult language. Diminutives are more complicated phonetically than their simplex forms and much longer. So the child has more problems to pronounce the word in correct form. How to explain the child’s preference to use more complicated words? It would be helpful to look carefully at the Lithuanian noun declantional system. In short,we can say that there are 12 declinations (Ambrazas, 1994) and all the diminutive nouns fall just in 3 declinations: one for feminine and two for masculine gender. It seems that the child tries to simplify the difficult noun declentional system and uses just three endings instead of much more. That confirms that the rules of derivational morphology emerges before the inflectional one (Dressler & Karpf, 1995: 99-122).

   The analysis of diminutive suffixes showed that their frequency and productivity are very closely related with those in CDS. Table 2 shows the suffix frequency ( in percentages) of types/tokens in Rūta’s and her mother’s speech.

 Table 2 Distribution of diminutives suffixes in Rūta’s and her mother’s speech 

   The percentage is similar in different tables: the most frequent suffix for feminine nouns is -ytė, the second in frequency - utė, both in the speech of child and mother. The most frequent suffixes for masculine nouns are: -ukas and -elis. The other suffixes are used not very often. It is important to mention that Rūta starts to use not just one suffix but all of them from the beginning. Of course some of them are very frequent and others are very rare. If we compare the frequency of suffixes given in standard Lithuanian (Ambrazas, 1994) and those used in Rūta’s and her mother’s speech, the results are not the same. The most frequent suffixes according to the modern Lithuanian grammar are -elis, -elė.

   The big part of diminutives takes Nomina Propria, mostly names, esp. Rūta. The entire scale of all possible Lithuanian diminutive suffixes manifests itself, when addressing by name. The simplex is Rūta. The diminutives used in her speech are: Rūtytė, Rūtelė, Rūtulė, Rūtutė, Rūtužė, derived from the basic feminine noun and retaining the same gender. We also find a gender shift, in the case of diminutives formed with a help of masculine suffixes or by way of double suffixation: Rūtukas, Rūtulėlis, Rūtutėlis, Rūtužis, Rūtužėlis, Rūčiukas. The girl does not use these masculine suffixes for self-reference, only feminine. The gender shift and double suffixation serve for diminutive reinforcement and endearment meaning.

   The other important question is related to the semantic basis of diminutives and their simplex forms. Let us see, if the girl’s lexicon contains words in their basic form and diminutives or words in both forms. The results reveal that Rūta uses words mostly as basic ( approximately 55%) or as diminutives (approximately 35%). The words she uses in both forms are not very numerous - only about 10%. This percentage would be even lower, if we analysed the concrete examples. In most cases the words used in both forms differ in frequency. The diminutives are more frequent, e.g. kamuolys (5) - kamuol-iukas - DIM (53) ‘a ball’, koja (2) - koj-ytė - DIM (10) ‘a leg’, nosis (1) - nos-ytė - DIM (6) ‘a nose’, batas (6) - bat-ukas - DIM (11) ‘a shoe’, lėlė (2) - lėl-ytė -DIM (43) ‘a doll’. An interesting fact is that basic words are mostly imitations while diminutives self-produced:

 (1) Rūta 2;1 (MAM = the child’s mother, RUT = Rūta, the target child)

*MAM: Taip, čia futbolo kamuolys.

%eng: Yes, this is a football.

*RUT: Kamuolys.

%mor: #N:03:MS:CM| kamuolys: SG:NOM:kamuolys.

%pho: Kamuolys.

%eng: A ball.

   This is an example when Rūta uses a basic form in direct imitation. In a new speech situation more often she will say the same word as diminutive:

(2) Rūta 2;1

*MAM: Ką Rūtytė pirko?

%eng: What did Rūta - DIM buy?

*RUT: Kamuoliuką didelį raudoną.

%mor: #N:01:MS:CM| kamuoliukas: DIM:SG:ACC:kamuoliuką

#ADJ:didelis: SG:MS:ACC:didelį

#ADJ:raudonas: SG:MS:ACC:raudoną.

%eng: A ball - DIM big, red.

   That shows that the girl does not relate form differences to meaning differences (Clark, 1993).

   In cases when the word is new for Rūta and her mother used it in the basic form, the girl will leave the latter in her speech, e.g. žuvis ‘a fish’, bitė ‘a bee’, namas ‘a house’, saldainis ‘a candy’, mašina ‘a car’, balionas ‘a balloon’. But almost all these words, except ‘namas - a house’, changed into diminutives in a few months. It’s interesting to compare: 1;7 žuvis (5) - žuvytė - DIM (1), but 2;4 žuvis (2) - žuvytė - DIM(5); 2;3 balionas (24) - balioniukas - DIM (1) but in one month 2;4 balionas (7) - balioniukas - DIM (13); 2;3 saldainis (26) - saldainiukas - DIM (1) but 2;5 saldainis (11) - saldainiukas - DIM (11). One more example will illustrate Rūta’s preponderance to diminutives. It is possible to call such a process a diminutivization. That shows the girl’s understanding of both forms (basic and derivative) as the words with the same meaning.

   The first noun started to be used in both forms is batas ‘a shoe’. She used this word in its basic form in 1;7 and used it two times independently. In 1;8 batas (4) - batukas - DIM (2), 1;9 batas (1) - batukas - DIM (3), 1;10 batas (4) - batukas - DIM (5), 2;0 batas (3) - batukas - DIM (11).

   She produces both basic and diminutive form in the same speech situation for the same referent:

 (3) Rūta 2;1

*RUT: Turi = tuji, kamuolys, kamuoliukas, duok.

%mor: #V:turėti| PRES:SG:2:turi = tuji,

#N:03:MS:CM|kamuolys: SG:NOM:kamuolys,

#N:01:MS:CM|kamuoliukas: DIM:SG:NOM:kamuoliukas,

#V:duoti| IMPER:SG:2:duok.

%eng: (You) have a ball, a ball -DIM, give (me).

(4) Rūta 2;2

*RUT: Cia guli meška = meska, meškiukas = mesiuka.

%mor: #PROADV:LOC:DEM: čia = cia

#V:gulėti| PRES:SG:3:guli

#N:06:FM:CM|meška: SG:NOM:meška = meska,

#N:01:MS:CM|meškiukas: DIM:SG:NOM:meškiukas = mesiuka.

%pho: Cia [=čia] guli meska [=meška], mesiuka [=meškiukas].

%eng: Here is laying a bear, a bear - DIM.

   Thus, in most cases she preferred diminutives, i.e. longer words. It is obvious that sometimes (esp. in early periods) due to phonetic difficulties she could not pronounced the whole word properly, but she always pronounce the suffix, e.g. Ūtytė, Tytė (Rūtytė). The stress helps to maintain the suffix and to hear it properly, because in Lithuanian the suffixes of diminutives are mostly stressed and this can help to recognise them in speech. It was already mentioned that from the very beginning Rūta used a lot of suffixes. It is important that when she used diminutives she chose not one but several different suffixes for one word, e.g. 1;8 - mešk-iukas - DIM (5) ‘a bear’, mešk-utė - DIM (6), mešk-ytė - DIM (1); med-ukas - DIM (5), med-utis (1) ‘a honey’; 1;9 - kač-iukas - DIM (1), kat-in-ėlis - DIM (1), kat-ytė (10) ‘a cat’; mašin-ėlė - DIM (1), mašin-ytė - DIM (3); 1;10 - arbat-ėlė - DIM (3), arbat-ytė (2) ‘a tea’; 2;2 - kamuol-iukas - DIM (84), kamuol-ėlis (2) ‘a ball’; kengūr-iukas - DIM (31), kengūr-ytė (2) ‘a kangaroo’; 2;2 - kepur-aitė -DIM (2), kepur-ytė - DIM (2) ‘a hat’.

   The fact that the girl uses several suffixes shows her mastery of diminutive formation. We mentioned that Rūta used diminutives independently enough - not in direct imitations. A few examples will confirm that she can produce these derivatives independently and in a correct form:

(5) Rūta 1;7

*MAM: Ką tu čia dabar darysi?

%eng: What will you do here now?

*MAM: Batukus atsegi?

%eng: Are you taking your shoes - DIM off?

*MAM: Kas čia yra, Rūtyte?

%eng: What is this, Rūtyte - DIM?

*RUT: Batai.

%mor: #N:01:MS:CM|batas: PL:NOM:batai

%pho: Batai.

%eng: Shoes.

(6) Rūta 1;8

*MAM: Kas čia?

%eng: What is this?

*RUT: Meškytė =metytė.

%mor: #N:08:FM:CM|meškytė: DIM:SG:NOM:meškytė = metytė.

%pho: Metytė [=meškytė].

%eng: A bear - DIM.

*MAM: Meškutė?

%eng: A bear - DIM?

*RUT: Taip.

%eng: Yes.

(7) Rūta 1;8

*MAM: O kas čia?

%eng: And what is this?

*RUT: Meškutė = metiutė.

%mor: #N:08:FM:CM|meškutė: DIM:SG:NOM:meškutė = metiutė.

%pho: Metiutė [=meškutė].

%eng: A bear - DIM.

*MAM: Meškutė?

%eng: A bear - DIM?

*RUT: Meškiukas = metiukas.

%mor: #N:01:MS:CM|meškiukas: DIM:SG:NOM:meškiukas = metiukas.

%pho: Metiukas [=meškiukas].

%eng: A bear - DIM.

   Thus, she can pronounce the word in its basic form (3), though her mother uses diminutive or can create different words with different suffixes: -ytė, -utė, -ukas (4,5). It seems that she already has the rules of derivational morphology and can say the basic and derivative forms independently. She understands that the language system allows to use different suffixes for the same word. This confirms her very early mastery of the rules of the adult language system.

3. 2. Qualitative analysis

   According to Stephany “in oder to understand the development of diminutives in child language acquisition it is necessary to study not only their morphological derivation but also their semantic and pragmatic functions” (1997:150).

   Diminutives are used more frequently in child directed speech than in adult language.

   In Lithuanian, as in Greek, the same “ diminutives are used very frequently when talking to or referring to children, and the lexical items with the greatest flexibility in accepting diminutive forms are mostly those related, directly or indirectly, to young children” (Sifianou 1992: 158):

(8)

*MAM: Žiūrėk, vežimėlyje - DIM mažytė - DIM lėlytė - DIM jau miega.

%eng: Look, in the crib - DIM a little - DIM doll - DIM already sleeps.

   In child directed speech situations the suffixes of diminutives are often pragmatically motivated and “ are preferentially attached to nouns referring to the child, its body parts, or even objects specifically belonging to the child” (Dressler & Merlini 1994: 224 cited in Stephany 1997: 152). After the analysis of basic and diminutive forms we see that semantic categories such as toys, animals (toys), body parts, food, clothes are among those that Rūta deminutivizes more frequently. Differently from Greek ( Stephany 1997: 153) Lithuanian girl uses a large number of diminutive forms when referring to persons (about 60% of tokens). It’s comprehensible that a big part of deminutivized names consists of the repetitions of the girl’s name. She uses it a lot in self-reference. It could be influenced by her mother’s speech. “Children are frequently referred to, or addressed by, diminutivized forms of their full names” (Sifianou 1992:159). The mother can use one or several different variants of girl’s diminutivized name as a standard (Rūtytė, Rūtelė, Rūtutė). These forms of her name are used by relatives and friends. There are very uncommon forms used just in very specific situations (mother used Rūtuliukas, Rūtužėlis). But these derivatives “ tend to be used only by a restricted number of closely related people, and are not usually used in self-reference” (Sifianou 1992: 158).

   The data consists mostly of mother’s and daughter’s dialogues, so their names are most frequent among other names. There are a lot of address forms and self-references in their utterances, e.g.: Mamytė sako Rūtytei ‘The mother - DIM says to Rūta - DIM’; Rūtyte, atnešk, mamytė prašo ‘ Rūta - DIM, bring, the mother - DIM is asking’; mamyte, duok ‘ mother - DIM, give ‘; Rūtytės puodukas ‘ Rūta’s - DIM cup - DIM’. The names used in diminutive form express pragmatic meaning of love, endearment. There are some cases when these names are used in their basic forms by both the mother and the girl. The interesting fact, which contradicts earlier statement that the basic and the derivative forms used by the girl do not differ in the meaning, appears:

(9)

a) *MAM: Negalima, Rūta, nukrisi nuo čia.

%eng: Don’t do, Rūta, (you) will fall (down) from here.

b) %sit: Rūta felt down and crying.

*RUT: Skauda.

%eng: Hurts.

*MAM: Neskauda, nelipk, Rūta, tikrai bus kampas.

%eng: Doesn’t hurt, don’t go, Rūta, will be a corner. (It means that Rūta will be punished).

c) *MAM: Nelįsk, nelįsk prie rozetės, Rūta!

%eng: Don’t touch, don’t touch the socket, Rūta!

d) *MAM: Išbarstei viską, oi tu Rūta, Rūta.

%eng: (You) spilled everything, aha Rūta, Rūta.

   In these examples we see the difference in meaning between the basic and diminutive forms. In all these patterns mother used the girl’s name in its basic form for the purpose to discipline Rūta (a, b, c) or to show her disappointment in her daughter (d). It means that the diminutive forms are used in contexts for the purpose to express affection, endearment and other warm feelings or in neutral situations. The basic form takes opposite and negative meaning .

   When Rūta addresses her mother she also uses more of diminutive forms. Nevertheless there are some utterances with a basic form:

(10) Rūta 2;4

*RUT: Ateik cia, ateik.

%mor: #V:ateiti| IMPER:SG:2:ateik

#PROADV:LOC:DEM:čia = cia

#V:ateiti| IMPER:SG:2:ateik.

%pho: Ateik cia [=čia], ateik.

%eng: Come here, come.

*RUT: Statom, statom.

%mor: #V:statyti| PRES:PL:1:statom,

#V:statyti| PRES:PL:1:statom.

%pho: Statom, statom.

%eng: Let’s build, let’s build.

*RUT: Mama, statom, mama.

%mor: #N:06:FM:PR|Mama:SG:VOC:mama

#V:statyti| PRES:PL:1:statom,

#N:06:FM:PR|Mama:SG:VOC:mama.

%pho: Mama, statom, mama.

*RUT: Mama!

%mor: #N:06:FM:PR|Mama:SG:VOC:mama!

%pho: Mama!

%eng: Mother!

(11) Rūta 2;5

*RUT: Mama, mama, užrišk = ajisk meškiuikui = mesiukai.

%mor: #N:06:FM:PR|Mama:SG:VOC:mama,

#N:06:FM:PR|Mama:SG:VOC:mama,

#V:užrišti|IMPER:SG:2:užrišk = ajisk

#N:01:MS:CM|meškiukas: DIM:SG:DAT:meškiukui = mesiukai

%pho: Mama, mama, ajisk [=užrišk] mesiukai [=meškiukui].

%eng: Mother, mother, tie up the bear.

(12) Rūta 2;5

*RUT: Mama, neužsimerk = nesimek, žiūrėk = žiūjėk!

%mor: #N:06:FM:PR|Mama:SG:VOC:mama,

#V:neužsimerkti| IMPER:SG:2:neužsimerk = nesimek,

%pho: Mama, nesimek [=neužsimerk], žiūjėk [=žiūrėk].

%eng: Mother, don’t close (your eyes), look!

   It is not hard to notice that all the situations are very similar and they mean the same - the request to do something. We can recognise that the request contains some other components: non-satisfaction, non-patience, irritation - which are negative. The girl uses imperative and special intonation for reinforcement of the negative meaning.

   These differences in meaning between basic and derivative forms were noticed only in the usage of these two names and not in the others, neither in the common nouns usage. Thus, Dressler’s hypothesis is confirmed that “simplicia and diminutives are used interchangeably without any noticeable difference in meaning” (1994: 101).

   Rūta’s diminutives mostly have a pragmatic meaning, especially as forms of endearment, e.g. Šun-iukai - DIM miega prie kengūr-iuko - DIM ‘the dogs - DIM sleeps to the kangaroo -DIM’ (2;4); Meškiukui skauda kojytė ‘ the bear - DIM hurts the leg - DIM’ (2;5). As hypothesised by Dressler (1994: 102) in Rūta’s data the pragmatic meaning seems to emerge much earlier than semantic meaning of smallness. There were no examples found in the whole data when a simplex noun and its corresponding diminutive had different referents. Rūta’s data confirms Gillis’ hypothesis “that in this early stage of acquisition, the child is constructing the formal operation of diminutive formation. The evidence indicates that this occurs without the semantic underpinnings of diminutive use, since if the relevant semantic dimension needs to be expressed, the child uses full lexical means to do so” (1997: 177). The evidence comes from the girl’s use of the adjective mažas,-a ‘little’, e.g. Maža kat-ytė - DIM ‘ a little cat - DIM’ (2;3); Maž-iukas - DIM kengūr-iukas - DIM ‘ a little - DIM kangaroo - DIM’ (2;3).

4. Conclusion

   We analysed the acquisition of Lithuanian diminutives from the data of one child at the age from 1;7 till 2;6. The acquisition of these derivatives starts very early. The child uses a big quantity of diminutives from the very beginning and she does that in a very qualitative way (no “errors” found in the whole data).

   A very close parallel between the mother’s and the child’s use of diminutives was discovered.

   Rūta’s data confirmed that simplicia and diminutives were used interchangeably without any noticeable semantic difference (Dressler 1994: 101). In the same speech situation and for the same referent she used both simplicia and diminutives. Diminutives in Rūta’s speech do not indicate semantic distinctions.

   The primary meaning of diminutives used in child and input speech is pragmatic, especially endearment, love and other warm feelings. In Lithuanian the diminutive formation as in others Indo-European languages pragmatics seems to be very important. Thus the non-semantic meaning of the earliest diminutives disconfirms assumption of smallness as central meaning of diminutives (Dressler & Karpf, 1995: 109).

5. References

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Published in: STUDIES IN THE ACQUISITION OF NUMBER AND DIMINUTIVE MARKING / Ed. STEVEN GILLIS, 1998 P. 115 - 135