Serbian Nouns Motivated by the Lexeme ‘Дете’ (‘Деца’)

Abstract

The text focuses on Serbian nouns motivated by the form дете (деца) ‘child’ (‘children’) which belong to the standard language. The starting point is the dictionary definition of the Serbian lexeme дете (деца). The current state of etymological research on the general original meaning of the word ‘child’ in Slavic and other European languages is also analyzed. Next, the motivated words are finally divided into diminutive and augmentative, as well as compound derivatives, their dictionary definitions are provided, and they are examined from the word-formation perspective. The Serbian word дечак (дечкo) is also included in the analysis. The extracted linguistic material comes from Речник српскога језика (Dictionary of the Serbian Language), published by Matica Srpska – the most comprehensive lexicographic work on contemporary standard Serbian language to date. Therefore, the text also contains an analytical outline of this publication. The analysis of the collected linguistic material showed that in the Serbian standard language the derivatives and noun compounds motivated by the lexeme дете (деца) form a significantly large group. The study also proves that both the basic motivating word дете and its variant – which functions as the plural form – the collective noun деца, could participate in the motivation of the formed diminutive, augmentative, compound forms and the form дечак (дечкo). At the same time, a broader etymological introduction to the word дете (деца) against the Slavic and European background showed that the word originally had a much lower social status than it has today. This may be indicated by the analyzed augmentative (and pejorative) derivatives. On the other hand, diminutives and pejoratives will constitute a primary ‘product’ created within the close family, which later became the lexemes of the standard language (although it should be borne in mind that they can also take a disparaging or ironic meaning in a specific communicative con-text). The analyzed compounds, on the other hand, could originally belong to legal discourse, and then, as they began to be used more and more widely, they found themselves within the Serbian standard lexicon. In the case of compounds, a curious phenomenon is their ‘double’ motivation, which may stem either from the form дете, or from the form деца, carrying the same meaning.