Diminutive in Latin

[Przibram]

Hi! I read in a paper, I can try to find it again and post here the reference, that Classical Latin had no diminutives. This would refer to Classical Latin only, not Vulgar Latin. I wonder if this statement about the Latin diminutives is correct or not. Any advice is welcome.

Rgs

PB

 

[Matthaeus]

no

 

[Michael Zwingli]

Diminutive nouns in (Classical) Latin are derived by suffixation with the diminutive suffix -ulus or any of its alternate forms, as the stem-word demands. The suffixes -ulus, -lus (apharetic form), -culus and -unculus (rebracketed forms), -uleus (-ulus + -eus), -illus, -ellus, and -ullus all form diminutive nouns from nouns. Examples of diminutives so-formed include: calculus, regulus, libellus, masculus, sermunculus, clavicula (a feminine form), acunculus, equuleus, and nucleus (< nuculeus).

So you see, Latin does indeed recognize diminutives, some of which (calculus, nucleus) you are undoubtedly familiar with from other contexts.

 

[Pacifica]

What is true is that diminutives became more frequent in late Latin, to the point that some of them eventually replaced the base forms in Romance languages. They actually lost their diminutive force then. It is, however, absolutely not true that diminutives didn't exist in classical Latin.

 

[Tlepolemus]

What is true is that diminutives became more frequent in late Latin, to the point that some of them eventually replaced the base forms in Romance languages.

I like an example from Russian language. The word sólnyško (a small sun) underwent the following transformation (sorry for simplified transcription):

1. sóln (cognate with Latin "sol")
2. sólnce: sóln +‎ -ce (diminutive suffix, such as дерево > дерев-це)
3. sólnyško: sólnce + -yško (diminutive of diminutive)

So, in modern Russian, sólnce had "lost their diminutive force" and can be combined again with diminutive suffix.

Is there a similar word formations in late Latin?

P.S. Probably, puer > puella (puerula) > puellula.

 

[EstQuodFulmineIungo]

I like an example from Russian language. The word sólnyško (a small sun) underwent the following transformation (sorry for simplified transcription):

1. sóln (cognate with Latin "sol")
2. sólnce: sóln +‎ -ce (diminutive suffix, such as дерево > дерев-це)
3. sólnyško: sólnce + -yško (diminutive of diminutive)

So, in modern Russian, sólnce had "lost their diminutive force" and can be combined again with diminutive suffix.

Is there a similar word formations in late Latin?

P.S. Probably, puer > puella (puerula) > puellula.

Interesting!
Maybe oculus > ocellus?

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

I'm sure I've mentioned before the character in one of Aldous Huxley's novels whose favourite joke is asking people if they've seen his 'teeny, weeny penis'; the English 'pencil' derives from Latin penis with two diminutive endings.

 

[EstQuodFulmineIungo]

Penicillin too!

 

[Przibram]

What is true is that diminutives became more frequent in late Latin, to the point that some of them eventually replaced the base forms in Romance languages. They actually lost their diminutive force then. It is, however, absolutely not true that diminutives didn't exist in classical Latin.

Very interesting, thank you for this insight. Is it known for what reason diminutives were not so frequent in Classical Latin as they were later in late Latin?

 

[Gregorius Textor]

I'm sure I've mentioned before the character in one of Aldous Huxley's novels whose favourite joke is asking people if they've seen his 'teeny, weeny penis'; the English 'pencil' derives from Latin penis with two diminutive endings.

Ah, so that's why a gesture that I made with my pencil in elementary school was considered rude!!!

My favorite Classical Latin diminutive: Caligula, "Little Boot," from caliga, soldier's boot.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

Tlepolemus' солнце example reminded me:

In Slavic, the word for 'father' is also a diminutive. The same reverend nursery word seen also in Latin & Greek, namely atta, + -ikos (> ePS *-ькъ > lPS *-ьсь). I can't help but cringe when I see the OCS form отьсь because, in my head, it sounds like 'oh, tits'.

Is it known for what reason diminutives were not so frequent in Classical Latin as they were later in late Latin?

If I had to guess, I'd say:
1. There were simply fewer words/fewer things needing new words (this isn't a medieval example, but it's like calling your new instrument an ocarina or 'little goose').
2. In Classical Latin, some reflexes wound up looking like diminutives when really they were, say, instrumental in origin. Like poculum is not a 'little drink' but rather 'that out of which one drinks: a drinking-thing'. This may have contributed to the weakening of force mentioned somewhere above, so that genuine diminutives like ocellus came to mean, not 'little something' but just 'thing' (in this case 'an eye'), and caused useful new productive morphemes to start piling up in Late Latin as well as Common Romance.

 

[Przibram]

@Glabrigausapes thank you.

 

[Anbrutal Russicus]

Very interesting, thank you for this insight. Is it known for what reason diminutives were not so frequent in Classical Latin as they were later in late Latin?

(1) I haven't seen any evidence that would lead me to think that this statement is true, and (2) some original diminutives already start being lexicalised as the default terms in Late Latin, which means that (3) diminutives were very common before Late Latin, that is in Classical Latin. If we find evidence to support this statement, the explanation can be trivial: the very limited selection of textual genres (oratory, history, philosophy) that have been preserved to us from Classical Latin don't favour the use of diminutives; while the dramatic corpus that reached us basically consists of two authors apart from Seneca.

 

[cinefactus]

Not a scientific survey but this discussion makes me think of:
sī quis mihi parvulus aulā lūderet Aenēās