Permanence and Change in Diminutives in Granada. A Real-Time Study

Diminutives in Granada (Spain) require special study because Granada and its surrounding area is one of the few places in the Hispanic world where three productive suffixes coexist: -ito, which can be considered general across all Spanish geolects; -illo, which is specific to the Andalusian variety; and -ico, which has a more local or subregional character. Data from the PRESEEA-GRAN corpus indicate the low representation of -ico with phonic restrictions, the penetration of -ito through lexical diffusion, and the maintenance of -illo as the most productive suffix. The PRESEEA-GRAN corpus was replicated in the AGENDA-GRAN corpus. Modern data, at a first level of analysis, indicate the maintenance of the previous distribution, but a more detailed analysis shows productivity data that suggest a slow diffusion of -ito at the expense of the other two suffixes.