ICO into illo

What is it about?

In the Spanish of Granada (Spain) there are three diminutive suffixes: –ico/a (local), –illo/a (regional) and –ito/a (general). After studying a standardized corpus (PRESEEA) the following distribution was found: 13% –ico/a, 42% –ito /a and 45% –illo/a. The variation and change that are occurring today are complex as they respond to various causes. The most important ones are the social factors because the level of studies explain better the results in the analysis of the variance.

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Why is it important?

There is a change by lexical diffusion, because the penetration of –ito/a is due to frequently appearing words with no substantive bases, especially locutions. These factors lead to the emergence of new phonetic constraints that contribute to a progressive language change. Furthermore, a fact that complicates the situation is that that the greater or lesser use of diminutives in Spanish is an idiosyncratic feature.