Diminutive in selected poems of Al-Mutanabbi

الملخص EN

Diminutive is a term used in morphology to refer to an affix with the general meaning of ' little ', used literally or metaphorically ' as the term of endearment ' or it can also be a word or an ending of a word that shows that somebody or something is small.

This paper aims to highlight the ' diminutive ' term, forms and meanings in classical Arabic by deciding the morphological patterns of Arabic diminutive words, their meanings and inflections- as far as the changes of their grammatical classes or parts of speech are concerned-in eighteen selected poems of Al-Mutanabbi.

The models of the present paper are Wright (1971),Haywood & Nahmad( 1993 ),and Schneider (2013).

This paper falls into five sections : the first is the introduction of the paper , the second is the definition of the term " diminutive " , the third is devoted to the diminutive in classical standard Arabic , the fourth is the practical analysis of the diminutive in selected poems of Al-Mutanabbi , and the fifth involves the conclusions.