Part of
The Acquisition of Diminutives: A cross-linguistic perspectiveEdited by Ineta Savickienė and Wolfgang U. Dressler
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 43] 2007
► pp. 263–278
Edited by Ineta Savickienė and Wolfgang U. Dressler
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 43] 2007
► pp. 263–278
10. Diminutives in Finnish child-directed and child speech
There are various means to form diminutives in Finnish, for example regular suffixation (e.g. isä ‘father’ + i > isi ‘daddy’) and modification of the stem possibly combined with suffixation (e.g. kissa ‘cat’ > kisu ‘pussycat’, maha ‘stomach’ > masu ‘tummy’). The article first deals with the different types of Finnish diminutives and then examines the diminutives of two Finnish-speaking children. In early child language, a trochaic bias is observed. In diminutive formation, there is a tendency towards transparent inflection: when forming diminutives by stem modification, different morphophonological alternations are eliminated and transparent inflection patterns are favoured.
Cited by (4)
Cited by four other publications
Laalo, Klaus & Reili Argus
Laalo, Klaus
2017. Chapter 8. Acquisition of compound nouns in Finnish. In Nominal Compound Acquisition [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 61], ► pp. 191 ff. 
Laalo, Klaus
2021. Derivation in Finnish child speech and child-directed speech. In The Acquisition of Derivational Morphology [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 66], ► pp. 237 ff.
Dabašinskienė, Ineta
2012. Gender Differences in Language Acquisition: A Case Study of Lithuanian Diminutives. Journal of Baltic Studies 43:2 ► pp. 177 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 december 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.