Diminutivos a la Dominicana

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Stodgord

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Nov 19, 2004
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In DR,

when the object ends in 'to' or 'ta' we add a 'co' or a 'ca' depending on the gender instead of the usual 'to' or 'ta'. For example

Gato=cat Gatico =kitten instead of gatito
Pato=duck patico =ducklin instead of patito

I believe this is not only done in DR, but also in Venezuela and Cuba. I may be wrong, perhaps other can elaborate.
 

juancarlos

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Sep 28, 2003
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Stodgord said:
In DR,

when the object ends in 'to' or 'ta' we add a 'co' or a 'ca' depending on the gender instead of the usual 'to' or 'ta'. For example

Gato=cat Gatico =kitten instead of gatito
Pato=duck patico =ducklin instead of patito

I believe this is not only done in DR, but also in Venezuela and Cuba. I may be wrong, perhaps other can elaborate.

Yes, that is right. This is how it is done in Cuba, Venezuela, PR and Colombia besides the DR. I think I've only heard citizens from those countries using this rule.
 

Tordok

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Oct 6, 2003
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juancarlos said:
Yes, that is right. This is how it is done in Cuba, Venezuela, PR and Colombia besides the DR. I think I've only heard citizens from those countries using this rule.

Juancarlos,
Your above statement is true for Cuba and Venezuela, but this use is NOT common in Puerto Rico where the "c" instead of "t" is rare if not completely absent. I'm not so sure about Colombia since there are wide variations in usage and diction between the coastal and the highlands dialects of that nation.

To me what is funniest about the use of diminutives in the DR is that often people apply a diminutive suffix to words that are already a diminutive themselves. Classic example:
Chico = Small
Chiquito = Very small
Chiquitico = Very very small (tiny?)
Chiquititico= you get it by now, right?

- Tordok
 

Chirimoya

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Dec 9, 2002
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Are there exceptions? I'm pretty sure some diminutives follow the conventional Spanish pattern - perrito, pajarito. What is the logic (if any) behind this?

edited to add - just re-read the OP, which answers my question.

Carry on.
 

juancarlos

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Tordok said:
Juancarlos,
Your above statement is true for Cuba and Venezuela, but this use is NOT common in Puerto Rico where the "c" instead of "t" is rare if not completely absent. I'm not so sure about Colombia since there are wide variations in usage and diction between the coastal and the highlands dialects of that nation.

To me what is funniest about the use of diminutives in the DR is that often people apply a diminutive suffix to words that are already a diminutive themselves. Classic example:
Chico = Small
Chiquito = Very small
Chiquitico = Very very small (tiny?)
Chiquititico= you get it by now, right?

- Tordok

You know, I had asumed it was the same in Puerto Rico since it is a Spanish Caribbean island too. I have visited PR, but I never paid any attention to that, I just assumed it. Of course, when I go there I visit my relatives who are Cuban and their PR born descendents, maybe that's why. I Know the say zapatico, momentico etc. in Venezuela and I've heard Colombians using the same diminutive, particularly in tv programs from there. You may be right that in some other parts of that country it may be different. Being PR and DR so close, I wonder why Puerto Ricans would not use this tico ending. Venezuela is farther away and they do use it.

Talking about applying diminutive suffixes to words that are already a diminutive of a word, in Cuba they go even further sometimes: chirriquitico! which means very, very small.
 
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Tordok

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chirriquitico! LOL It's been a while since I last heard that one. On the other hand why is it that the great majority - but not all- of Puerto Ricans use that weird sounding guttural 'R'? No one really knows. Each country has its own idiomatic idiosyncracies, and it is actually amazing that we still share so many aspects of daily language.

Having relatives in all three of the 'Spanish' Greater Antilles (Cuba, DR, & PR) I can tell you that our 'languages' are more alike than they are different. People just focus on the differences precisely because they sound "funny" to them, but I agree with you that we share a lot of common words, phrases, and modisms that are part of the Caribbean style and accent along with coastal Venezuela, Colombia and Panama. These can easily be distinguished from other 'accents" like the Central American, the Andean, the various Mexican, several Iberian Spanish, and certainly very different from the almost unintelligible, lunfardo-laden Argentinian dialect of Buenos Aires.

Qu? viva la diferencia!

- Tordok
;)
 

Marianopolita

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Dec 26, 2003
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Mi punto de vista

I will admit I was waiting for some more responses before posting in this thread because I wanted to get a feel for people?s opinions about diminutive usage which is an interesting structure of the Spanish language.

First of all in my experience I believe ?ito- in general is more common in Latin America than ?ico- and the latter is really exclusive usage and a definite characteristic of a few countries. The usage may vary inconsistently in others.

From a grammatical standpoint diminutives in Spanish have more than one function. The primary usage is to convey ?smallness? or ?very small? however, they can also be used to show affection and keep mind there are words in Spanish that have a diminutive ending but the meaning is not diminutive at all.

The common diminutives in Spanish are:
-ito/ -ico/ -illo (very common in Spain)/ -uelo/ -?n/ -ecito

Examples of true diminutives:

carita/ chiquillo/ patico/ florecita/ peque??n

Diminutives that convey ?affection? (cari?o):

abuelita/ hermanita/ hermanito

Words with diminutive endings but do not indicate ?smallness?:

pasillo/ mejilla/ colilla


I agree that ?ico- is used mostly in Cuba and Venezuela but I never really paid attention to it anywhere else. I believe ?ito- is widely used in coastal South America and Panama. However, there is no steadfast rule governing the usage of one or the other. ?ito- phonetically is my preference.


LDG.
 
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