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Augmentative
 
 
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An augmentative is a suffix
Affix

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivation , like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed....
 or prefix added to a noun
Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open class lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
 in order to convey the sense of greater intensity, often though not primarily indicating a larger size. It is the opposite
Antonym

In lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs male : female, long : short, up : down, and precede : follow....
 of a diminutive
Diminutive

In language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form, is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment....
.

odern English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
, augmentatives are rare. Since the early 1990s, there has been a semi-ironic borrowing of the augmentive prefix "über" (usually pronounced as /'u?b?/) from German: as in 'über-guru'.






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An augmentative is a suffix
Affix

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivation , like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed....
 or prefix added to a noun
Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open class lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
 in order to convey the sense of greater intensity, often though not primarily indicating a larger size. It is the opposite
Antonym

In lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs male : female, long : short, up : down, and precede : follow....
 of a diminutive
Diminutive

In language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form, is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment....
.

Germanic languages


English

In modern English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
, augmentatives are rare. Since the early 1990s, there has been a semi-ironic borrowing of the augmentive prefix "über" (usually pronounced as /'u?b?/) from German: as in 'über-guru'. Occasionally the word "super" may also be used as a prefix to augment a word.

German

In German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
, there are different ways to build augmentatives. They are rarely used prefixes:
  • Un-, for instance in Unzahl, Unsumme, Unmenge, Untiefe.
    Un- is more often used for negation (eg. Unglück, Unsinn).
  • Aber-, for instance Abertausend


Hellenic languages


Greek

Modern Greek
Modern Greek

Modern Greek refers the varieties of Greek spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic modern features of the language had been present centuries earli...
 has a variety of augmentative suffixes: -a, -??a, -a???, ?-a???, -???a, -a????, ?-a??a?.

Latin and Romance languages


Italian

In Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
, -o/-a becomes -one, seen in quite a few culinary names, such as minestrone soup (from "minestra") and provolone cheese (from "provola"), family name
Family name

A family name or last name is a type of surname and part of a personal name indicating the family to which the person belongs. The use of family names is widespread in cultures around the world....
s, and other loanwords, such as Carton
Carton

Carton is the name of certain types of containers typically made from paperboard which is also sometimes known as "cardboard". Many types of cartons are used in packaging....
 and cartoon
Cartoon

The word cartoon has various meanings, based on several very different forms of visual art and illustration. The term has evolved over time.The original meaning was in fine art, and there cartoon meant a preparatory drawing for a piece of art such as a painting or tapestry....
, both from "cartone", augmentative of carta, paper
Paper

Paper is thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon or packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
 (related to English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 card
Card

The term card , primarily refers to cardboard or a piece of this.More generally, the term can refer to any of various small flat objects, typically made from heavy paper or plastic....
).

Portuguese

In Portuguese
Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Portugal. It is derived from the Latin language spoken by the Romanization Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago....
, the most common augmentatives are the masculine -ão (sometimes also -zão or -zarrão) and the feminine -ona (or -zona), although there are others, less frequently used. E.g. carro "car", carrão "big car"; homem "man", homenzarrão "big man"; mulher "woman", mulherona "big woman".

Sometimes, especially in Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese

Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by virtually all the 189 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....
, the masculine augmentative can be applied to a feminine noun, which then becomes grammatically masculine, but with a feminine meaning (e.g. "o mulherão" instead of "a mulherona" for "the big woman"); however, such cases usually imply subtle meaning twists, mostly with a somewhat gross or vulgar undertone (which, nonetheless, is often intentional, for the sake of wit, malice or otherwise; so, mulherão actually means not a big woman, but a particularly sexy one).

Romanian

In Romanian
Romanian language

Romanian or Daco-Romanian ; self-designation: limba rom?na, ) is a Romance languages spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova....
 there are several augmentative suffixes: -oi/-oaie, -an/-ana etc (masc/fem pairs). As in other languages, a feminine base word may have masculine or feminine forms in the augmentative. Examples:
  • casa (f.) -> casoi (n.), casoaie (f.)
  • piatra (f.) -> pietroi (n.)
  • baiat (m.) -> baietoi (m.)
  • baiat (m.) -> baietan (m.)


Spanish

In Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
, -o becomes -ón and -a becomes -ona most frequently, but -ote/-ota and -azo/-aza (meaning -blow) are also commonly seen. Others include -udo/-uda, -aco/-aca, -acho/-acha, -uco/-uca, -ucho/-ucha, -astro/-astra and -ejo/-eja. More detail at Spanish nouns
Spanish nouns

The Spanish language has nouns that express concrete objects, groups and classes of objects, qualities, feelings and other abstractions. All nouns have a conventional grammatical gender....
.

Slavic languages


Bulgarian

In Bulgarian
Bulgarian language

Bulgarian is an Indo-European languages, a member of the Slavic languages linguistic group.Bulgarian demonstrates several linguistic innovations that set it apart from all other Slavic languages except Macedonian language, such as the elimination of grammatical case, the development of a suffixed definite article , the lack of a verb infin...
 - like in Russian, mainly with -???. See also here
Bulgarian language

Bulgarian is an Indo-European languages, a member of the Slavic languages linguistic group.Bulgarian demonstrates several linguistic innovations that set it apart from all other Slavic languages except Macedonian language, such as the elimination of grammatical case, the development of a suffixed definite article , the lack of a verb infin...
.

Polish

In Polish
Polish language

Polish , an official language of Poland, has the largest number of speakers of any West Slavic languages. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner through most of Poland, and it has a regular orthography....
 there is a variety of augmentatives formed with suffixes, for example: zaba (a frog) zabucha (big frog) zabsko (frog we don't like) zabisko (frog we feel pity for) zabula (unwieldy frog for which we feel some sympathy), kamien (stone), kamul/kamol (large stone), dziewczyna (girl) dziewucha (older girl, large girl, or the girl we don't like) etc.

Russian

In Russian
Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
 there is a variety of augmentatives formed with suffixes, including -??? and -?? for example: ??? (the house) ?????? (big house) ?????? (huge house). To provide an impression of excessive qualities the suffix -?? can be used for example: ????? (the wind) ??????? (strong wind).

International auxiliary languages


Esperanto

In Esperanto
Esperanto

is the most widely spoken constructed language international auxiliary language in the world. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L....
, the -eg- suffix is included before the final part-of-speech vowel. For example, domo (house) becomes domego (mansion). See Esperanto vocabulary
Esperanto vocabulary

The word base of Esperanto was originally defined by Lingvo internacia, published by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887. It contained some 900 root words....
.

Interlingua

In Interlingua
Interlingua

Interlingua is an international auxiliary language , developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association . It is the second or third most widely used IAL and the most widely used International auxiliary language#Classification IAL: in other words, its vocabulary, grammar and other characteristics are largely...
, the suffixes
Free word-building in Interlingua

Words can be included in Interlingua in either of two ways: by Interlingua and eligibility of international words or by deriving them using Interlingua words and affixes....
 -on and -ion are occasionally used as augmentatives. See also Interlingua grammar
Interlingua grammar

This article is an informal outline of the grammar of Interlingua, an international auxiliary language first publicized by International Auxiliary Language Association....
.

See also

  • Diminutive
    Diminutive

    In language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form, is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment....