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Article published In: Constructions and Frames
Vol. 17:2 (2025) ► pp.175–210

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Exploring the form of Italian diminutives

Alternation patterns and constructional schemas

ORCiD logo with link | Università degli Studi di Milano
ORCiD logo with link | Università Cattolica del Sacro CuoreMilano
Published online: 24 April 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cf.23028.mic
Abstract
In this paper, we provide an extensive analysis of the formal features displayed by Italian diminutives (especially allomorphy) by using surface alternation patterns automatically extracted from a dataset of base-diminutive pairs. Applying the theoretical tools provided by Construction Morphology (CxM), we take alternation patterns as a proxy for paradigmatic relations and locate them into separate hierarchies, exploiting the mechanism of multiple inheritance in order to express generalizations on different, mutually independent factors at play (i.e., lexical category, gender and final segment of the base and derivative, suffixes and antesuffixal phonological material displayed by the derivative). In doing so, we contribute to the exploration of the formal side of Italian diminutives, which have been so far addressed mostly from a semantic perspective, and to the refinement of the representation of formal phenomena such as allomorphy according to the CxM framework.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The theoretical framework: Construction Morphology
  • 3.The methodology: Alternation patterns as a proxy for paradigmatic relations
  • 4.The data
  • 5.The analysis
    • 5.1Surface alternation patterns
    • 5.2Constructional hierarchies
      • 5.2.1Lexical category
      • 5.2.2Gender
      • 5.2.3Final segment
      • 5.2.4Suffix
      • 5.2.5Antesuffixal phonological material
      • 5.2.6Multiple inheritance from different hierarchies
    • 5.3Interaction between hierarchies: A quantitative analysis
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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