Contents -- Abbreviations -- 0. Aims, claims and structure of the present study -- 1. Introduction -- 1.1. What are diminutives? -- 1.2. Related terms and concepts -- 1.3. Conclusion -- 2. Researching diminutives: the state of the art -- 2.1. Overview -- 2.2. Grammatical approaches to diminutives -- 2.3. Pragmatic approaches to diminutives -- 2.4. Summary and perspectives -- 3. Researching diminutives: integrating grammatical and pragmatic perspectives -- 3.1. The object of analysis -- 3.2. General outline of the research programme -- 3.3. The grammatical perspective: diminutive formation -- 3.4. The pragmatic perspective: diminutive use -- 3.5. Method -- 4. Grammatical aspects of English diminutives -- 4.1. Some controversial issues -- 4.2. Synthetic diminutive formation -- 4.3. Analytic diminutive formation -- 4.4. The relationship between synthetic and analytic diminutive formation in English -- 5. Diminutive use in English conversation -- 5.1. Vocative acts -- 5.2. Directive acts -- 5.3. Commissive acts -- 5.4. Expressive acts -- 5.5. Assertive acts -- 5.6. Summary: diminutive use in English conversation -- 6. Summary and perspectives -- References.