Frequency and geolinguistic distribution of the diminutive ‑ito/‑ita in the spoken and written language of CORPES XXI

Abstract

This article analyzes the geolinguistic distribution of diminutives in ‑ito/‑ita in the Spanish-speaking world. We exhaustively explored CORPES XXI, counting a total of 267,000 cases (tokens) of non-lexicalized diminutives. For the quantitative analysis, three parameters are taken into account: (i) geographical area, (ii) part of speech and (iii) written vs. spoken medium. This study shows that diminutives are more frequent in the spoken subcorpus and in informal registers. Also, in the spoken subcorpus, differences between varieties are more pronounced. Overall, the higher frequency of diminutives in America compared to Spain is confirmed, even if ‑ico/a and ‑illo/a are added to ‑ito/a. In the spoken subcorpus, the highest relative frequency is found in the Andean region, very closely followed by the Antillean and Mexican and Central American regions. The continental Caribbean, the Río de la Plata and Chile follow with slightly more difference. On the other hand, in the written language, it is the Rio de la Plata subcorpus that shows the highest relative frequency of diminutives. Contrasting the written and oral results, we conclude that the written language of the Río de la Plata is more permeable to colloquial and familiar phenomena than other varieties. As for part of speech, diminutives predominate in common nouns (especially in the Río de la Plata variety), followed by proper names and adjectives. The most productive use of diminutives with less prototypical categories (adverbs, quantifiers, articles, numerals, demonstratives, possessives, relatives and gerunds) is found in Mexico and Central America, in the Andean area and in the continental Caribbean.