The Morphophonology and Semantics of Latin Diminutives and Names of Personifications
Creators: Miller, Ian A
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2023

<p>This doctoral dissertation investigates, synchronically and diachronically, the morphophonology and semantics of the categories of Latin diminutives and structurally similar non-diminutives, two categories that have long been in urgent need of reanalysis. It aims to answer questions relating to these words’ grammatical terminations, the phonetics that might affect their terminations, the semantics that might affect the particular suffixes, and the reasons we should classify these words into diminutive words or words that serve some other functions. These questions derive from our essential unfamiliarity with the structure and meaning of these words, a product of our lack of engaged synchronic and diachronic analysis of not only the words but the category itself, over centuries of Latin as a living and a literary language.<br>
    Chapter I introduces the issues surrounding the problems arising from this unfamiliarity. Much of the content of this chapter derives from an examination of Latin diminutives which yielded lists of all such words appearing in the works of selected Roman authors ranging from around 200 BCE to around 200 CE. Chapter II reviews the accumulated results, the scholarly consensus, and the areas remaining to be developed on the topic of such words. Chapter III explains a formal definition of “diminutive” in the context of the Latin language and offers a system for classifying these words according to their morphophonology and semantics. Chapter IV features diachronic and synchronic analyses of the suffixes of these words. Chapters V, VI, and VII contain analyses of different types of diminutives and non-diminutives. Chapter VIII is devoted to the semantic and morphological analysis of Names of Personifications. Chapter IX is the concluding chapter. There is then a Bibliography and several appendices composed of lists of the words from the works of the selected Roman authors.<br>
    The three conclusions which this dissertation draws are: 1) Latin diminutives can denote literal or imputed smallness, and they regularly imitate their base words as much as possible morphophonologically and they usually imitate their base words semantically in some sense; 2) the major categories of diminutive-looking non-diminutives are nouns and adjectives that derive from verbs, nouns, and adjectives; 3) the Names of Personifications employ the suffixes of certain types of non-diminutive words, and the “Personification-forming suffix” which this dissertation proposes is a specialized application of these non-diminutive suffixes.<br>
    The four implications of this dissertation are: 1) the formation procedures for the creation of diminutives suggest that we need to amend the grammar books and other such sources; 2) the morphological resemblance between diminutives and diminutive-like terms which indicate personified figures suggests that there may be a natural yet nuanced link between diminutives and personification; 3) these diminutives and non-diminutives make the point that linguistics is dynamic in general, persistent and constantly evolving; 4) modern users of Latin typically use grammar books and other such sources for the creation of new words, and this dissertation can provide them with the knowledge to avoid misapprehensions involving the creation of diminutives.</p>