THE SYNTAX OF INDIVIDUATING DIMINUTIVES IN ROMANIAN

Authors

  • Mihaela TĂNASE-DOGARU University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.62229/aubllrlxxiv/25/9

Keywords:

diminutives, augmentatives, Size, Romanian

Abstract

The paper investigates a special use of diminutive affixes in Romanian. In this use, when attached to mass nouns of the type unt ‘butter’, carne ‘meat’, pască ‘Easter cake’, diminutives yield countable nouns of the type untulețe / ‘butter.DIM.PL’ / ‘packets of butter’,
cărnițe / ‘meat.DIM.PL’ / ‘steaks’, păscuțe / ‘Easter cake.DIM.PL’ / ‘pieces of Easter cake’. These countable nouns unambiguously refer to units of stuff, as opposed to kinds of stuff. Following in essence De Belder (2008, 2011), the paper proposes that, in contexts where
the count-unit reading arises as a result of diminutive affixation, the respective affixes head their own projection SizeP. In all other cases of diminutive affixation, diminutive affixes are specifiers of a ClassP projection (Fábregas 2013).

aub_ll574_25-9

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Published

2025-11-05

Issue

Vol. 74 No. 1 (2025): ANALELE UNIVERSITĂŢII BUCUREŞTI. LIMBA ŞI LITERATURA ROMÂNĂ

Section

Articles

How to Cite

THE SYNTAX OF INDIVIDUATING DIMINUTIVES IN ROMANIAN. (2025). Analele Universității București. Limba și Literatură română, 74(1). https://doi.org/10.62229/aubllrlxxiv/25/9

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