Research On The Basic Types Of Diminutives In Chinese Dialects

Diminutive is a language phenomenon that uses pronunciation,vocabulary and grammar to express the meaning of small shape and small quantity.Diminutive mainly show tiny meanings,sometimes accompanied by emotional colors such as intimacy,loveliness and disgust.The phenomenon of diminutive is very rich in Chinese dialects,and its word--building forms are various and widely distributed.In this paper,diminutive of Chinese dialects are classified into four basic types:overlapping type,additional type,inflexion type and mixing type.And the word--building forms,features,functions and geographical distribution of these four types of diminutives are explored.