Abstract This paper investigates diminutives and hypocoristics used in asymmetric verbal communication with pet animals in three European languages and a Semitic language. Italian, German, English, and Tunisian Arabic display different structural and communicative richness of diminutives, as well as dissimilar customs and sociocultural norms. The paper focusses on pragmatic meanings and functions, including the usages where pragmatic functions are supplemented by semantic meanings. Our data were collected by parallel semi-formal interviews of native speakers of the four languages investigated in order to test our hypotheses that different cultural environments exploit the pragmatic potentials of hypocoristics and diminutive forms in different ways when addressing pet animals or speaking about them. Diminutives are often used with pets in analogy to child-directed speech, mainly to express empathy and in familiar contexts.

中文翻译：

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意大利语、德语、英语和阿拉伯语中对宠物不对称使用小词和虚伪

摘要 本文研究了用三种欧洲语言和一种闪米特语与宠物进行不对称口头交流时使用的小词和虚伪。意大利语、德语、英语和突尼斯阿拉伯语显示出不同结构和丰富的小语种，以及不同的习俗和社会文化规范。本文重点研究语用意义和功能，包括语用功能以语义意义补充的用法。我们的数据是通过对四种语言的母语人士进行平行半正式访谈收集的，目的是测试我们的假设，即不同的文化环境在处理宠物动物或谈论它们时，会以不同的方式利用虚伪和小形式的语用潜力。