The Acquisition of Diminutives -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC data -- Table of contents -- Introduction -- Form and meaning of diminutives in Lithuanian child language -- 1. Diminutives in Lithuanian -- 3. Data -- 4. The Development of diminutives in child language -- 5. Formal aspects of diminutives -- 6. Productivity and transparency of diminutives -- 7. Semantics of diminutives -- 8. Pragmatics of diminutives -- 9. Concluding remarks -- Diminutives in Russian at the early stagesof acquisition -- 1. Description of the adult target system -- 1.1 Diminutives from different parts of speech -- 1.2 Diminutives and hypocoristics -- 1.3 Diminutive grammar -- 1.4 Augmentatives and other related affixes -- 1.5 Diminutive use -- 2. Material -- 2.1 Previous studies on Russian child diminutives and augmentatives -- 2.2 The present study -- 2.3 Frequency of diminutives in the speech of children and caregivers -- 2.3.1 Quantitative characteristics of diminutives: the case of Varja -- 2.3.2 Quantitative characteristics of diminutives: the case of Filipp -- 2.3.3 Comparison of the two children -- 2.4. Semantic, pragmatic and structural functions of diminutives -- 2.4.1 Semantic and pragmatic role of diminutives (Varja) -- 2.4.2 The structural role of diminutives (Filipp) -- 2.4.3 Comparison of the two children -- 3. Discussion and conclusions -- The acquisition of diminutives in Croatian -- 1. A short description of the adult target system -- 1.1 Masculine -- 1.2 Feminine -- 1.3 Palatalized and nonpalatalized forms -- 1.4 Dialectal suffixes -- 1.5 Homophonous suffixes -- 1.6 Augmentatives -- 1.7 Adjective and verbal diminutives -- 1.8 Hypocoristics -- 2. The data -- 3. Antonija's acquisition of diminutives -- 3.1 The quantitative analysis -- 3.2 Diminutives - simplex contrasts -- 3.3 The distribution of the diminutive suffixes -- 3.4 Errors.

3.5 The meaning of Antonija's diminutives -- 4. Conclusion -- Diminutives in Greek child language -- 1. Introduction* -- 2. Diminutives, hypocoristics and augmentatives in MG -- 2.1 Morphology -- 2.1.1 Derivational aspects of diminutives -- 2.1.2 Hypocoristics and augmentatives -- 2.1.3 The inflection of diminutives -- 2.2 Semantic and pragmatic aspects of MG diminutives and hypocoristics -- 3. The data -- 4. The development of diminutives in child language -- 4.1 Quantitative aspects -- 4.2 Derivational development of diminutives -- 4.3 Inflectional development of diminutives -- 5. The semantics and pragmatics of affectivity: hypocoristics -- 5.1 Hypocoristics vs. diminutives in child speech and child-directed speech -- 5.2 Α suffix for creating one's personal affectionate world: the case of -ina -- 6. Conclusions: Form and function of diminutives in Greek as compared to other languages -- The role of diminutives in the acquisition of Italian morphology -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Description of Italian diminutives -- 3. Methodology -- 4. Emergence and evolution of diminutives -- 5. Suffix allomorphy -- 6. Semantic and pragmatic aspects -- 7. Do diminutives facilitate the acquisition of inflection? -- 8. Concluding Remarks -- The acquisition of diminutives in Spanish -- A useful device -- 1. The diminutives in Spanish -- 2. Objectives -- 3. Description of the corpus -- 4. Quantitative Descriptive Overview -- 4.1 Child-directed speech -- 4.2 Distribution across Word classes -- 4.3 Summary -- 5. Qualitative analysis -- 5.1 The first contrasts -- 5.2 Morphophonology and selection of suffixes -- 5.3 Spontaneity and imitation in use of diminutives -- 5.4 Constructing a morphological system -- 6. Semantics and pragmatics of diminutives -- 6.1 The hipocoristics and diminutives: semantics and pragmatics -- 6.2 Nouns' semantic groups and diminutive.

7. Conclusions -- A longitudinal study of the acquisition of diminutives in Dutch1 -- 1. Adult diminutive system -- 2. Data -- 3. Development -- 3.1 Early emergence -- 3.2 Frequencies in child speech -- 3.3 Frequencies in cds -- 4. Form oppositions -- 5. Diminutive distribution -- 5.1 First emergence -- 5.2 The frequency of allomorphs -- 6. Comparing cds with ads -- 7. Conclusion -- Diminutives and Hypocoristics1 in Austrian German (AG)2 -- 1. German adult language -- 2. The acquisition data -- 3. Distribution of the different diminutive classes -- 4. Frequency ranking of diminutives -- 5. Time course -- 5.1 Jan -- 5.2 Katharina -- 6. Form oppositions and mini-paradigms -- 6.1 Jan's form oppositions -- 6.2 Katharina's form oppositions -- 6.3 Form oppositions in the input -- 7. Semantic groups of diminutives -- 8. Evidence for diminutive acquisition -- 8.1 Semantic and pragmatic evidence for diminutive acquisition in Jan's data -- 8.2 Semantic and pragmatic evidence for diminutive acquisition in Katharina's data -- 9. Comparison of Jan's and Katharina's diminutives -- 10. Conclusion -- Acquisition of diminutives in Hungarian1 -- 1. Description of the adult language -- 1.1 Diminutive formation in Hungarian -- 1.2 Declension of diminutives -- 1.3 Functional aspects of diminutives -- 2. Description of the databases -- 2.1 Panna's database -- 2.2 Miki's database -- 2.3 The applied "data purification" -- 3. Description of the findings on Miki and Panna -- 3.1 Overall view of the children's use of diminutives in the corpuses -- 3.1.1 Panna -- 3.1.2 Miki -- 3.1.3 Comparing Panna's and Miki's use of diminutives -- 3.2 Distribution of different diminutive classes -- 3.3 Evolution of the children's diminutive use in time -- 3.4 Emergence of diminutives and their simplex counterparts -- 3.5. Formal productivity.

3.6. Semantic and pragmatic aspects of diminutive acquisition -- 4. Summary and conclusions -- Appendix -- Notes -- Diminutives in Finnish child-directed and child speech -- 1. Introduction -- 1.1 Types of diminutives in Finnish -- 1.2 Pejoratives and augmentatives -- 1.3 Hypocoristics -- 2. Formal aspects of diminutives in Finnish -- 2.1 The simplex bases -- 2.2 Formation by regular affixation -- 2.3 Formation of diminutives by stem modification -- 3. Semantics and pragmatics of diminutives -- 4. Morphophonological aspects of Finnish diminutives -- 5. Diminutives in the speech of two Finnish-speaking children -- 5.1 The material: classes of diminutives and the frequency of diminutives -- 5.2 Tuulikki: diminutives in diary material and recordings -- 5.2.1 The first diminutives and the trochaic bias -- 5.2.2 Tuulikki's own diminutive types in the diary material -- 5.2.3 Tuulikki's diminutives in the recordings -- 5.2.4 Summary of Tuulikki's diminutives -- 5.3 Tuomas: diminutives in diary material and recordings -- 6. Conclusion -- The (scarcity of) diminutivesin Turkish child language* -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Diminutives and hypocoristics in Turkish grammar -- 2.1 -cik -- 2.2 Other diminutives (or other forms of -cik) -- 2.3 -Iş/-Oş and other hypocoristics -- 3. Method -- 4. Diminutives are rare in child speech -- 5. An error -- 6. Scarcity of diminutives in cds -- 7. Conclusion -- Acquiring diminutive structures and meanings in Hebrew -- An experimental study -- 1. Introduction -- 1.1 Borrowed Hebrew diminutives -- 1.2 Native Hebrew diminutives -- 1.2.1 Juvenile diminutives -- 1.2.2 Conventional-derivational diminutives -- Linear formation -- Reduplication -- 2. Method -- 2.1 Population -- 2.2 Research tasks and procedure -- 2.3 Analysis -- 2.3 Predictions -- 3. Results -- 3.1 Study tasks -- 3.2 Further analyses -- 3.2.1 Explanation: animacy.

3.2.2 Explanation: dimensions -- 3.2.2 Production: Lexicalization -- 4. Discussion -- 4.1 The explanation task -- 4.2 The production task -- Diminutives provide multiple benefits for language acquisition -- 1. The pervasiveness of diminutives in cds -- 2. Diminutives aid word segmentation -- 3. Diminutives aid morphology acquisition -- 4. Why so many diminutives? Towards an explanation of the nature of cds -- Conclusions -- Subject Index -- The series Language Acquisition and Language Disorders.