FORMATION AND SIGNIFICANCE OF MORPHOLOGICAL AND LEXICAL DIMINUTIVES IN ENGLISH

This work explains the significance of lexical and morphological diminutives in English and their roles in communication as well as cultural and social significance. Although diminutives are less developed in English compared to other languages, they serve to perform a variety of functions from indicating size or youth to affection or downplaying importance. Lexical diminutives convey semantic changes, often creating informal or affectionate words of other words without special affixes (e.g., "kitty" for "cat"), while morphological diminutives occur through the use of diminutive affixes (e.g., "booklet" or "duckling"). Not only do such words increase the flexibility and expressiveness of the language, but also convey emotional shades and social contexts. The article reflects the application of diminutives in the manifestation of familiarity, informality, and affection, their gendered meaning, as well as cultural appropriateness. Information about diminutives illuminates extensively the application of language to establish social relations and emotional rapport in everyday social life. Also, the mentioned morphological diminutives and their grouping by parts of speech were controlled, and subgroups of material samples were created for each part of speech (mainly nouns, adjectives). For each part of speech, productive suffixes and prefixes used were noted. Words were given according to each suffix. The study shows that diminutives (diminutives, endearments) in English arise within both root, lexical, and grammatical morphemes, so that, based on additional examples, it can be said that diminutives can be described in examples of fiction as well as in everyday speech. (Bin Mukhashin, Kh. Diminutives in English and Hadhrami Arabic. 2018).