Suggested hierarchy of base types for diminutivisation and augmentativisation: Noun > Adjective, Verb > Adverb, Numeral, Pronoun, Interjection > Determiner
Standardized
IF augmentatives/diminutives can be formed from Determiners, THEN they can also be formed from Adverbs, Numerals, Pronouns, or Interjections;IF from Adverbs, Numerals, Pronouns, or Interjections, THEN also from Adjectives or Verbs;IF from Adjectives or Verbs, THEN from Nouns.
1, This is meant to supersede previous claims (e.g. by Ettinger 1974 and Nieuwenhuis 1985), revised in light of Bauer’s superior crosslinguistic evidence.2. Modified claim (author):The further down the hierarchy, the less PRODUCTIVE is evaluative derivation.3. And author en passant suggests that diminutive is more productive than augmentative evaluative morphology – restated implicationally (and I’m sure such a claim has somewhere been made explicitly):IF augmentative derivational morphology, THEN also diminutive derivational morphology.4. The present claim does not seem intended as a claim about diminutive/augmentative as an AGREEMENT category, specifying preferred agreement triggers and targets. Where diminutive/augmentative is used for purposes of agreement, as in Tungusic or Bantu, nouns are the triggers and adjectives and also verbs the targets. Less systematically than in agreement, diminutive/augmentative marking can be distributed over several major (lexical or also focused grammatical) words in a sentence as a kind of affective perseveration. See Plank 1981: 255-256, with references.
1, This is meant to supersede previous claims (e.g. by Ettinger 1974 and Nieuwenhuis 1985), revised in light of Bauer’s superior crosslinguistic evidence.2. Modified claim (author):The further down the hierarchy, the less PRODUCTIVE is evaluative derivation.3. And author en passant suggests that diminutive is more productive than augmentative evaluative morphology – restated implicationally (and I’m sure such a claim has somewhere been made explicitly):IF augmentative derivational morphology, THEN also diminutive derivational morphology.4. The present claim does not seem intended as a claim about diminutive/augmentative as an AGREEMENT category, specifying preferred agreement triggers and targets. Where diminutive/augmentative is used for purposes of agreement, as in Tungusic or Bantu, nouns are the triggers and adjectives and also verbs the targets. Less systematically than in agreement, diminutive/augmentative marking can be distributed over several major (lexical or also focused grammatical) words in a sentence as a kind of affective perseveration. See Plank 1981: 255-256, with references.