Diminutives/Augmentatives (Syntax and Morphology)

This contribution is dedicated to the study of derivational processes with evaluative value in Ancient Greek. Within the field of linguistic studies, the term ‘evaluation’ is generally used when referring to various linguistic constructions concerning different levels of analysis of languages: phenomena of phonetic iconicity, derivation by affixes, reduplication processes, apocope, etc. Diminutives and augmentatives are the cross-linguistically most widespread exponents of the class of the so-called 'evaluative affixes'. Besides them, we find also pejorative and ameliorative affixes. Ancient Greek has a quite rich evaluative morphology. As for formal strategies, suffixation is largely prevalent. Nevertheless, the inventory of evaluative suffixes is not very rich: there is a great gap in productivity between the most frequent suffix, -ion, and the others, like -iskos, etc. As far as semantic values are concerned, what clearly emerges is the absence of augmentatives. In this case, Ancient Greek is similar to Latin, and, probably, to Sanskrit. In other words, augmentatives seem a quite recent innovation within Indo-european languages. The symptoms of the process that led to the formation of 'modern' augmentative suffixes are already visible in Ancient Greek. As for diminutive suffixes, they present a wide range of possible semantic extensions. In a form such as anthropískos, for example, it is obviously difficult to discriminate between a purely descriptive interpretation (‘small man’) and a qualitative interpretation, capable of expressing the contempt of the speaker (‘nonentity', not taking physical dimensions into consideration).