Una propuestita astutita: el diminutivo como recurso atenuador

This paper pretends to explain the uses and meanings of diminutive -it(b/a) with adjectives and nouns in Spanish, exploring the possibility that the different semantic, expressive-aesthetic and stylistic-pragmatic values of this appreciative affix can be natu- rally accounted for if we assume that it is a mitigating device. Affix -it(o/a~ fails to appear with deverbal adjectives (cC *movedicito *atrayenhiso) and deverbal (*(~te)ntamjna(.k,n ella) or deadjectival (*casualidadita) nouns. Besides, it tends to reject adjectives with intrinsically positive meanings (cfr. ??lealito vs. cobardito), while it can combine with mass nouns, which should a priori be incompatible with the meaning of `little' (arenita, agüIta). In both cases, we argue that this peculiar behaviour is due to the fact that -it(o/a~ is a mitigating device, which can even affect sentential modality, in the level of the act of speech (¿No tiene un cigarrito?) or the propositional content (Me c/jo miedito). although other discursive uses are also relevant.