Abstract Ikema is defined as ‘definitely endangered’ by UNESCO (2009). The study examines an evaluative morpheme -gama used by old Ikema speakers aged 64 to 86 when speaking between Ikema speakers and when speaking Standard Japanese with outsiders. Descriptive grammar of Ikema (Hayashi 2010; Hayashi 2013 inter alia) has treated -gama as diminutive morpheme, representing smallness such as tui-gama ‘small bird’ or showing the affections to the base noun. The observations on naturally occurring data, however, revealed that the Ikema speakers barely used -gama by means of describing smallness: the most frequent use of -gama was found to be non-supplementary (Shetter 1959) and carries various socio-pragmatic functions. The related meanings/functions of -gama are presented in radial category (Lakoff 1987).

中文翻译：

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琉球语池间语中的小语素-gama

摘要 Ikema 被联合国教科文组织定义为“绝对濒危”（2009 年）。该研究检查了 64 至 86 岁的池间老人在与池间人交谈时以及在与外人说标准日语时使用的评价语素 -gama。Ikema 的描述性语法（Hayashi 2010；Hayashi 2013 等）将 -gama 视为小语素，代表小，例如 tui-gama“小鸟”或表示对基本名词的感情。然而，对自然发生的数据的观察表明，Ikema 说话者很少通过描述小而使用 -gama：发现 -gama 的最频繁使用是非补充性的（Shetter 1959），并具有各种社会语用功能。-gama 的相关含义/功能以径向类别呈现（Lakoff 1987）。