Rum. -a$, -u$, -e$, -i$

From: George S t a n a
Message: 15180
Date: 2002-09-06

>and -usz, -uszã in mãtuszã "aunt"

That's correct, but the spelling is wrong: no such combination
in Romanian writing "sz". It's always an "s" with cedilla for /S/.

>A Magyar suffix is -asz, which, applied at first
>to agent nouns, has taken an affective meaning in words like copilasz, pãunasz
>"young peacock".

That's completely wrong: Magy. "-<vowel>sz" has nothing to do
with Rum. "-a$" (or "-u$"). If any relationship to Magyar suffixes,
then with the family of these: "-<vowel>s" /-S/, such as "-as, -ás,
-os, -is, -es, és". But note that if in Romanian similar suffixes can
play quite the same role as in the Hungarian counterparts, the
Hungarian suffixes with /S/ are no diminutive suffixes. For such
a purpose, Hungarian makes use of "-ka" and "-ke".

>Further, Romanian often applies an accumulation of diminutive
>suffixes: muier-usz-cã "little woman", mân-usz-itzã "little hand"."

Again: never *-usz", but always "-u$". In "muierusca", "-ca"
resembles the Slavo-Magyar "-ka" and the (Northern) German
"-ke(n)" and (pan-)German "-chen" (Männeken, Männchen).

"hoa$ca" (old hag), "branzoaica" (some food with cheese),
"leoaica" (lioness), "Nemtzoaica", "Grecoaica", "Unguroaica"
(German, Greek, Hungarian woman) (but actually no genuine
diminutive connotation; besides, note the feminine suffixe
-oai(a/e) inserted before "-ca": along with its masc. form "-oi",
it is quite the opposite of diminutival suffixes, i.e. generally
used for emphasizing something big, large, coarse, clumsy etc.)

>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal

George