Spanish: An Essential Grammar

botella bottle botellín small bottle of beer

tesis thesis tesina dissertation

The various forms of -ico, originally mainly Aragonese in usage, are now

not common in Spain except to indicate sarcasm or irony. In Central

America and Colombia, however, -icois more common as a standard

diminutive:

vaso glass vasico small glass

The suffixes -ete/-eta used with nouns are diminutive in effect, but on occa-

sions they may also have pejorative intent:

avión aeroplane avioneta light aeroplane

historia story historieta short story

libro book libreta notebook

camión lorry camioneta pick-up/van

The form -ejo is used to suggest smallness, sometimes with a hint of unim-

portance or scorn:

papel paper papelejo a scrap of paper

animal animal animalejo nasty little animal

Augmentative suffixes

Augmentatives are used to indicate large size, or the increased and exag-

gerated possession of a particular characteristic, e.g. not just grande‘big’,

but grandote ‘huge’. Moreover, in most instances there is an implication

that clumsiness, awkwardness and ungainliness derive from this.

In fact, some augmentatives always express pejorativeconnotations such

as ugliness, contempt and scorn. Occasionally, however, they change the

meaning of the original word without denoting large size.

The most commonly used augmentatives are -ón/-ona, -azo/-aza and-ote/

-ota. These denote large size, sometimes with a pejorative connotation.

(a)-ón

When this suffix is attached to feminine nouns they often change gender

and take the masculine form. It can also be added to adjectives:

cuchara spoon cucharón ladle

pimientapepper pimentón paprika

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