MEANING OF DIMINUTION AND DIMINUTIVE SUFFIXES IN THE TURKISH LANGUAGE(Comparative Review Of The Modern Oghuz Dialects)

In this article, we will explain the diminutive suffix and its concept in the Turkish language. We will do this by analyzing the diminutive suffix in the modern Oghuz dialects and tracing it back to Old Turkish language. As the name implies, it is generally used in the process of diminution. We use the suffix to lower the value of things or dignity of people by adding it to nouns, adjectives and adverbs. However sometimes we add this suffix to words to show love and sympathy. It is also used to show smallness and littleness (age). With time, most of these suffixes became part of these words to which they are added to. As a result, new words with different meanings are produced. Words like aparcik and gelincik can be good example of this. These suffixes can play an important role in the quality of stress in the words they are added to. However, it is important to pay attention to the kind of word they are added to. We need to do this because they are stressed when they are added to adjectives but they are not when they are added to adverbs. Today, we can see that some of these diminutive suffixes are maintained without any changes. Some of them are no more used while others are joined to other suffixes to form compound words with different meanings.