Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.22210/suvlin.2023.095.01
Some thoughts on the emergence of augmentative/evaluative meanings of the Croatian suffix –ara
Gabrijela Buljan
orcid.org/0000-0001-6197-1829
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Osijeku
Abstract
In his typological study of the genesis of diminutive and augmentative suffixes Grandi (2011) attributed
the development of augmentative suffixes in Romance and Slavic languages to four sources: agentive/
pejorative derivational suffixes, collective suffixes, relational suffixes, and – in Slavic languages – suffixes
deriving place nouns. This paper seeks to establish how the Croatian suffix –ara fi ts into Grandi’s (2011)
system. According to Babić (2002: 130, 132), suffixations in –ara primarily denote places but there is a
small number of suffixations with augmentative or pejorative meaning. Skok (1971: 49–52), in turn,
describes this Pan–Slavic suffix under the entry for the agentive suffix –ar, which goes back to Latin –arius.
This paper sought to identify any conceptual indications in our synchronic data that the augmentative/
evaluative meanings of the suffix may have developed from any of the four meanings, viz. agentive/
pejorative, collective, relational and locative. The paper leans on usage–based models of language and
Rainer’s (2005) model of semantic change in word formation involving two mechanisms: reinterpretation
and approximation. Results indicate that the augmentative and other evaluative meanings of the suffix may
have developed from its agentive/pejorative meaning through a complex interplay of reinterpretation and
approximation, with some influence of metaphor and metonymy and structural factors. Our results are
submitted as hypotheses to be tested in future by dedicated diachronic studies.
Keywords
augmentation; suffix –ara; reinterpretation; approximation; evaluative morphology
Hrčak ID:
306424
URI
Publication date:
23.7.2023.
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