iminutive
English edit
Etymology edit
Back formation from diminutive.
Noun edit
iminutive (plural not attested)
- (grammar, rare) In Yiddish, a second-degree or more intensive diminutive form.
- 1984, A Faber, RD King, “Yiddish and the settlement of Ashkenazic Jewry”, in Mankind quarterly, volume 24, page 393:
- What is not common, however, in German dialects is the existence of an intensive diminutive (or, as it sometimes is called, an iminutive) having the shape -ele.
- 2005, Neil G. Jacobs, Yiddish: A Linguistic Introduction:
- Faber and King note that Yiddish and Bavarian both have an "intensive diminutive," i.e., a second degree of diminution (iminutive); thus, StY štot 'city,' štetl 'market town', štetɘlɘ 'little market town [endearing].'
- 2008, Max Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language:
- The main point in the diminutive and iminutive system is, however, not only that elements of two dialectally different subsystems of German have fused in the German component.
- 2015, Lily Kahn, Colloquial Yiddish:
- In addition to the diminutive, Yiddish has an 'iminutive', which is used to indicate that something is even smaller (as well as cuter, more lovable, or possibly more inferior) than a diminutive noun.
Translations edit
second-degree diminutive in Yiddish
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