Charakterystyka deminutywów w gwarze (na materiale Słownika gwary orawskiej)

ON DIALECTAL DIMINUTIVES (BASED ON THE DICTIONARY OF THE ORAVA DIALECT)The article provides a general description of broadly understood dialectal diminutives based on the Dictionary of the Orava Dialect by Józef Kąś. It also attempts to verify the widespread belief in linguistics that dialects are characterised by expressiveness and they are full of diminutives. Nearly 400 examples were analysed and divided into six word-formation categories, the most numerous of which is the category of tautological-diminutive/expressive names. Apart from this, diminutive, expressive, diminutive-expressive, tautological and folkloric names were distinguished. These derivatives constitute a small part of the Orava dialect lexicon (1.9% of the total vocabulary and 4.5% of nouns – almost identical proportions are characteristic of SWJP – the Dictionary of Contemporary Polish Language); expressive formations have an even lower share (less than 1.5% of all nouns), and dialectal word-formation means are no richer than in general Polish.