Is 子 used as a diminuitive?

[Kong Junrui]

Since there's no diminuitives in English it's kind of hard to explain, but is 子 used for this? I guess it's the equivilent of "-ito" in Spanish, like "tacito" (diminutive taco) or "perrito" (diminutive dog).

Basically, in Spanish, it gives words a softer sound, and kind of "cuteifies" things. So if you wanted to say something that's kind of harsh without being harsh, you could add a diminuitive and it sounds "nicer."

Anyone?

[Quest]

小，儿，子 etc are dimunitives but not always.

English "y" sometimes has that effect.

[Kong Junrui]

English "y" sometimes has that effect.

I guess that's the best way to describe it, but it doesn't work for all words, only a select few such as "doggy," "kitty," etc

It wouldn't work with something like "plate" or "book," as it would in Spanish.

[roddy]

Sounds like it's the same effect, but with a much narrower scope of application. You can't really go around adding 子 in places you'd like to use it, you need to wait till you here it used that way first.

[Kong Junrui]

Sounds like it's the same effect, but with a much narrower scope of application. You can't really go around adding 子 in places you'd like to use it, you need to wait till you here it used that way first.

Hmm, interesting. Are there any set rules as to which suffix you you with which word you want to diminuitize, like maybe it depends on the ending sound or something?

Or is it just something you have to speak Chinese as your first language to understand?

[roddy]

No rules I'm aware of, I'm afraid. 子 for example can just be used to make nouns two-syllables, with no indication of affection or diminuition - 椅子，车子, 房子, but it can also be used in a softening / affectionate way. I'm often referred to locally as 傻子, which I react to better than just 傻. A woman I used to work with who had the given name 超 was called 超子， but another woman with the given name 悦 was known as 悦儿. There might be some linguistic or phonological rules, but I suspect they'd be so complicated you'd be better off just memorizing the usage as you come across it.

Roddy

[Kong Junrui]

Oh wait, I just remembered something.

子 can also be used to noun-ify certain adjectives and such, right? Like in the example Roddy posted, "傻子.“ According to WaKan, 傻 means "foolish." I've seen other times that stuff like this occurs, but I don't remember any at the moment.

[roddy]

Yeah, 胖子 for example.

[skylee]

To "cuteify" things you can also repeat the word, like 包包 etc. My niece's name has the word 瑩 in it so we call her 瑩瑩.