Linguistic Society of America

Universal Tendencies in the Semantics of the DiminutiveAuthor(s): Daniel JurafskySource: Language, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Sep., 1996), pp. 533-578Published by: Linguistic Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/416278Accessed: 16/05/2009 23:03

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UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations which bind them. Synchronically, this model explains the varied and contradic- tory senses of the diminutive. Diachronically, the radial category acts as a kind of ARCHAE- OLOGY OF MEANING, expressing the generalizations of the classic mechanisms of semantic change (metaphor, abstraction and inference) as well as a new one: LAMBDA-ABSTRACTION, which accounts for the rise of quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive. The model also predicts that the origins of the diminutive cross-linguisti- cally lie in words semantically or pragmatically linked to children. I test the model by considering the semantics of the diminutive in over 60 languages, examining the origins of the diminutive in many of these, particularly in Indo-European where the theory suggests a new reconstruction of the proto-semantics of the PIE suffix "-ko-.

1. INTRODUCTION. For much of this century, the tools by which we have conducted linguistic inquiry into semantic univerals have distinguished between the investigation of a state of a language at a particular point in time, and the investigation of the historical antecedents and future realizations of this state. Universal statements about the former are often taken as psychological claims about the mind of the speaker. Universal statements about the latter tend to be cultural or sociological claims, or claims about language as a structural object.

In recent years, however, many scholars have begun to treat the synchronic state of the semantics of a language as profoundly bound up with its diachronic nature. Sweetser (1990), for example, has argued that generalizations about the diachronic semantics of modality and verbs of perception are rooted in the human conceptual system, and grounded in everyday experience. Bybee et al. (1994) and Traugott (1989) argue that diachronic universals in semantic descrip- tion are due to the embeddedness of language in the inferential process of

* Many thanks to Claudia Brugman, Bill Croft, Patrick Farrell, Charles Fillmore, Zygmunt Fraj- zyngier, Orin Gensler, David Gil, Leanne Hinton, Bernd Heine, Gary Holland, Ed Keenan, George Lakoff, Jack Martin, Yoshiko Matsumoto, John McWhorter, Laura Michaelis, Mary Niepokuj, Eric Pederson, Terry Regier, Rich Rhodes, David Rood, Eve Sweetser, Len Talmy, Elizabeth Traugott, Nigel Ward, Linda Waugh, David Zubin and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper and earlier versions, and to my informants Ramon Caceres, Shirley Chiu, Ziv Gigus, Yochai Konig, Srini Narayan, Terry Regier, and Hui Zhang. Of course all errors are my own.

533

UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES IN THE SEMANTICS OF THE DIMINUTIVE*

DANIEL JURAFSKY

International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and

University of Colorado, Boulder

Despite the crucial dependence of synchronic meaning on both historical and cognitive context, we have traditionally used different tools for expressing synchronic and dia- chronic generalizations in modeling a complex semantic category like the diminutive. This is due in part to the extraordinary, often contradictory range of its senses synchroni- cally (small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation, female gender), and the difficulty of proposing a coherent historical reconstruction for these senses.

I propose to model the synchronic and diachronic semantics of the diminutive category with a RADIAL CATEGORY (George Lakoff 1987), a type of structured polysemy that expli- citly models the different senses of the diminutive and the metaphorical and inferential relations