A Cognitive-Pragmatic Description of Evaluative Suffixes in Latin Letters: The Case of -llus

This paper aims to analyse the behaviour of the Latin suffix -llus in a corpus of letters from the classical and early post-classical periods in the light of the synchronic and diachronic polysemy model developed within cognitive linguistics and the morpho-pragmatic approach to diminutives. It is proposed that approximation is a central value in the semantic network of the suffix, which expresses a certain distance from the default values conveyed by the base. This distance may occur from the categorial centre (internal approximation), in which case the suffix modifies the semantics of the base but does not alter the categorial status of the referent. Alternatively, the suffix may impact categorial membership tout court (external approximation), throwing into question the categorial properties of the base. We here propose a semantic map to represent these semantic cores and the way they radiate towards other meanings that constitute the polysemous network of the suffix.