Czasowniki deminutywne w mowie adresowanej do małych dzieci

Abstract

One of the characteristic features of child-directed speech is the use of various diminutive and affectionate/ expressive forms. In this particular form of Polish, which may be included in the category of ‘familial language’— the tools of communication used in the family group, verb forms often appear which are not seen in general, literary Polish. This type of verb is most often characterized as diminutive/ affectionate/ expressive verbs. The structures analyzed in this article were extracted from the texts of 102 adult care-givers, ‘conversing’ with babies. The studied text consisted of 74,534 words (see: Milewski 2004). This type of verb was also collected during a survey in which 2697 respondents participated. Using sufficiently rich language material, I have given appropriate information on the frequency of presented expressive verbs as well as examples of their use in the speech of particular language users.