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Augmentative

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An augmentative (abbreviated AUG) is a morphological form of a word which expresses greater intensity, often in size but also in other attributes. It is the opposite of a diminutive.

Since overaugmenting something often makes it grotesque, in some languages augmentatives are used primarily for comical effect or as pejoratives.

Many languages have augmentatives for nouns; some have augmentatives for verbs.

Germanic languages

English

In modern English, augmentatives can be created with the prefixes:

  • over-: e.g., overlord and overseer.
  • grand-: e.g., grandmaster and grandparent.
  • super-: e.g., supermarket and superpower.
  • mega-: e.g., megastore and megastar.
  • arch-: e.g., archrival and archangel.

Since the early 1990s, the prefix über- has also frequently been used as a borrowing from German.[1] The suffix -zilla, expressing a monstrous quality, can also be considered an augmentative form.

Dutch

In modern Dutch, augmentatives are usually created with the prefixes:

  • over-: e.g., overgewicht and oververhitting ("overweight" and "overheating")
  • groot-: e.g., grootmeester and groothandel ("grandmaster" and "wholesaler")
  • super-: e.g., supermarkt and supermacht ("supermarket" and "superpower").
  • mega-: e.g., megacontract and megabioscoop ("a very big contract," and "a very large movie theater")

There are also prefixes that can be used for some adjectives:

  • bloed-: e.g., bloedmooi and bloedeigen ("very beautiful" and "very own")[2]
  • steen-: e.g., steenrijk and steengoed ("very rich" and "very good"; lit. "stone rich" and "stone good")
  • kei-: e.g., keihard and keileuk ("very fast/hard/&c." and "very fun", lit. "boulder hard" and "boulder fun")

German

In German, 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 (e.g. Unglück, Unsinn).
    This leads sometimes to confusion: Untiefe when referring to water can mean either very deep or shallow water.
  • Ur-, for instance, uralt.
  • Über-, for instance, "Übermensch".
  • Aber-, for instance, Abertausend.

Swedish

In Swedish the way to build augmentative is to add one of many prefixes before the word. This can be done on words in most word classes. The most common prefixes are: "jätte-" (giant-), "bauta-", "mega-".

Examples:
  • hus (house) -> megahus (gigantic house)
  • snabb (fast) -> jättesnabb (very fast)
  • sten (rock) -> bautasten (boulder)

There are many synonyms to "jätte-" although only when "jätte-" means "very", not big. Some of these synonyms are: "as-", "gör-", "svin-", "skit-" and "ur-" although ,as written above, these doesn't change the size of a noun they just change gul (yellow) to jättegul (very yellow). The use of prefixes to build augmentative is quite colloquial and is seldom used in formal text and speech. Then adjectives and adverbs are used instead.

Hellenic languages

Greek

Modern Greek has a variety of augmentative suffixes: -α, -άρα, -αράς, ΄-αρος, -άκλα, -ακλάς, ΄-ακλας.

Latin and Romance languages

Italian

Italian has several augmentatives:

  • -one, -ona, found also in several English loanwords from Italian, often via French:[3] minestrone (< minestra 'soup'); provolone cheese (< provola 'ewe'); cartone (< carta 'paper') appears in English carton and cartoon; (obsolete, regional) ballone (< possibly from balla 'ball', but perhaps a French formation being the proper Italian word "palla"[4]); millione 'million' (< mille 'thousand');
  • -accio, -accia (mainly a pejorative): coltellaccio (< coltello 'knife'; gives English cutlass); the family name Carpaccio;
  • -astro, -astra.

Portuguese

In Portuguese, 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, 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 there are several augmentative suffixes: -oi/-oaie, -an/-ană etc. (masc/fem pairs). From an unattested Late Latin -onus, -ona, the origin of the other Romance augmentative suffixes. The archaic form has survived unchanged in Banat ( and in Aromanian) as -on', -oan'e As in other languages, a feminine base word may have masculine or feminine forms in the augmentative. Examples:

  • casă (f.) -> căsoi (n.), căsoaie (f.)
  • piatră (f.) -> pietroi (n.)
  • băiat (m.) -> băieţoi (m.)
  • băiat (m.) -> băietan (m.)
  • fată (f.) -> fetișcană (f.)

Spanish

In Spanish, -o becomes -ón and -a becomes -ona most frequently, but -ote/-ota and -azo/-aza (also 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.

Slavic languages

Bulgarian

In Bulgarian, as in Russian, mainly with -ище.

Polish

In Polish there is a variety of augmentatives formed with suffixes, for example: żaba (a frog) - żabucha - żabsko - żabisko - żabula or kamień (a stone) - kamulec - kamior etc.

Russian

In Russian there is a variety of augmentatives formed with prefixes (including loans from Latin) and suffixes, including -ище and -ин for example: дом (the house) домище (great house) домина (huge house). To provide an impression of excessive qualities the suffix -га can be used for example: ветер (the wind), ветрюга (strong wind).

Serbo-Croatian

In Serbo-Croatian there is a variety of augmentatives formed with suffixes, most commonly with -ina.

Semitic languages

Arabic

Form II of the Arabic verb often has an augmentative sense, which may indicate intensity (intensive) or repetition (frequentative).[5]

Bantu languages

Bantu languages' noun class markers often double up as augmentative and diminutive markers, some have separate classes only used as augmentative or diminutive.

Chichewa

Chichewa noun class 7 prefix chi- doubles up as augmentative marker. For example chindege which is a huge plane as opposed to ndege which is just a regular plane.

International auxiliary languages

Esperanto

In Esperanto, the -eg- suffix is included before the final part-of-speech vowel. For example, domo (house) becomes domego (mansion). See Esperanto vocabulary.

Interlingua

Interlingua does not have an augmentative suffix, but international prefixes such as super-, hyper-, mega- can be used as augmentatives. See also Interlingua grammar.

Notes

  1. ^ "uber". Dictionary.com Unabridged (Online). n.d.
  2. ^ Note that Dutch bloed- is unrelated to English bloody. The former is formed in analogy with bloedeigen (‘very own’), bloedrood (‘very red’), &c. wherein it originally had its proper meaning ‘blood’ (‘of your own blood’, and ‘blood red’) whereas the latter's origin is uncertain but according to the OED might refer to the habits of the aristocracy (those of the blood): bloody drunk.
  3. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition, s.v. -oon
  4. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. balloon
  5. ^ Mark W. Cowell, A Reference Grammar of Syrian Arabic. Georgetown University Press, 2005. ISBN 1-58901-051-5. p. 253

See also

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