FORMATION AND USAGE OF HYPOCORISTIC FORMS IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE AND LITHUANIAN

ABSTRACT

This paper presents research into Anthroponomastics, a branch of Onomastics, devoted to the study of personal proper names. This paper is aimed at description and comparison of (1) different morphological processes involved in formation of hypocoristic forms in Brazilian Portuguese and Lithuanian and (2) the usage of hypocoristic forms as official first names in both countries based on the data available on two national institutional websites. The comparative analysis described in the paper shows that the morphological processes of clipping of first names have more similarities than differences in both languages, although equivalent first names may have different hypocoristic forms in each of the languages. In addition, the usage of hypocoristic forms as first names is quite different in each country. According to Brazilian statistical data, their usage is gradually decreasing. On the contrary, according to Lithuanian statistical data, the usage of hypocoristic forms as first names is a contemporary tendency in Lithuania.

Onomastics; Comparative Anthroponomastics; Hypocoristic forms; Clipping

RESUMO

Este artigo apresenta uma pesquisa em Antroponomástica, um ramo da Onomástica dedicado ao estudo dos nomes próprios de pessoa. O foco desse artigo é a descrição e comparação (1) dos diferentes processos morfológicos envolvidos na formação de hipocorísticos no Português do Brasil e no idioma lituano e (2) dos usos de nomes hipocorísticos como prenomes oficiais em ambos os países de acordo com dados disponíveis em dois websites institucionais nacionais. A análise comparativa descrita ao longo do artigo mostra que os processos morfológicos de abreviação de prenomes de cada língua apresentam entre si mais similaridades do que diferenças. Apesar dessas semelhanças, os usos de hipocorísticos como prenome são bem diferentes em cada país. De acordo com os dados estatísticos brasileiros, atualmente, tem diminuído o uso de hipocorístico como prenome. Ao contrário, segundo os dados estatísticos lituanos, o uso de hipocorísticos como prenome é uma tendência contemporânea na Lituânia.

Onomástica; Antroponomástica comparada; Nomes; Hipocorísticos; Abreviação

Introduction

This paper presents research into Anthroponomastics, a branch of Onomastics, devoted to the study of personal proper names. Van Langendonck points out that in order to properly understand the phenomenon of personal proper names, the systematic analysis of typology as well as the in-depth discussion of categorical meaning is required. However, there are few studies about subclassification of proper names and “[…] even if linguists are aware of this gap in the scientific literature, they refrain from tackling the problem.” (VAN LANGENDONCK, 2007, p.183). To solve this issue, Van Langendonck complements traditional classifications of proper names with the one based on their semantic-pragmatic characterization. His classification of personal names – referred to in this paper as anthroponyms – employs a binary opposition: ‘official’ vs. ‘unofficial’ and ‘primary’ vs. ‘secondary’ (VAN LANGENDONCK, 2007, p.189).

The aforementioned types of names have their distinguishing features. According to Van Langendonck (2007 , p. 189), official names are given by official state or religious institutions, while unofficial names “can be given by anybody”; primary names

[…] fulfil the three main functions of personal names: address (talk to), identification (talk about) and a wide possibility of subcategorization concerning gender and expressivity. ( VAN LANGENDONCK, 2007 , p.189).

In addition, secondary names are chronologically or functionally subsequent to primary names ( VAN LANGENDONCK, 2007 ).

First names are usually primary and official, while family names are official, but they can be both primary and secondary depending on the usage in a particular context. Unofficial names, such as bynames, pseudonyms and internet chat names are secondary. The place of hypocoristics within Langendonck’s framework is ambiguous. He suggests treating hypocoristics as first names but not as bynames and views hypocoristics solely as names with diminutive semantic component. Amaral’s definition of hypocoristics seems to be more suitable for the purposes of this article:

A hypocoristic form can be understood as a unit formed from a morphological variation (clipping, diminutive, augmentative, etc.) of another anthroponym. It is usually used in familiar contexts. Hypocoristic forms differ from nicknames because they originate from a full form of another proper name. ( AMARAL, 2011 , p.72, our translation).³

This paper is aimed at description and comparison of (1) different morphological processes involved in formation of hypocoristic forms in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and Lithuanian (LT) and (2) the usage of hypocoristic forms as official first names in both countries based on the data available on two national institutional websites. The Brazilian part of research uses the data from Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) – The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics ( IBGE, 2010 ), while the Lithuanian data are retrieved from the website of Valstybinė lietuvių kalbos komisija (VLKK) – State Commission of the Lithuanian Language (LITHUANIA, [201-]).

As the research is of a comparative nature, it follows the paradigm of Comparative Anthroponomastics⁴ where two or more anthroponomastic systems are compared in order to

[…] obtain results not only about the origin and development of languages, but also about their features which might be seen either as universal or as peculiar to each language and culture. In a similar manner, contrasting different social norms concerning people’s first names can lead to a better comprehension of common and distinct features of names and their usage across languages and cultures. (SEIDE, PETRULIONĖ, 2018, p.1203).

Since the study focuses on clipped first names, it is necessary to give a brief overview of this process. Thereby, clipping or its synonymic term truncation can be defined as a word formation device by means of which shorter counterparts of longer full words are created ( JAMET, 2009 ; BEHERA; MISHRA, 2013 ). From the morphological point of view, however, the clipped part of the word is usually an incomplete morpheme. In fact, there is a prosodic morphology that rules the word formation process of clipping as “[…] the creation of clipping is not arbitrary but is constrained by phonological restriction having to do with size and syllable structure. ” ( JAMET, 2009 , p.22, bold in original).

From the phonological perspective, it is important to find out where the word can be clipped and if there are constraints on the processes of word reduction in one language or across languages. Carter and Clopper’s overview of numerous studies on reduced forms in various languages (German, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Japanese and Hungarian) shows that there is “[…] a strong tendency for adult truncations to result in the maintenance of salient syllables and in well-formed feet regardless of input word length or stress pattern.” ( CARTER; CLOPPER, 2002 , p.326). Their research results related to the English language reveal that “[…] some systematic patterns, such as a preference for output patterns such as monosyllables and disyllables, have been found repeatedly in both the corpus-based and the experimental-based studies.” ( CARTER; CLOPPER, 2002 , p.326).

From the semantic point of view, after the creation of a clipped form, the shortened form and the full form of a word do not bear equivalent semantic relation any more. However, as pointed by Plag (2003 , p.22), “[…] truncations, in addition to the meaning of the base, signal the familiarity of the speaker with the entity s/he is referring to.” In the long term, clipped forms can be seen as autonomous, “[…] as the unmarked, standard forms [...]: fridge (<<refrigerator>>). Sometimes, the motivation between the full form and the clipped form is lost – a phenomenon known as ‘opacification’: pants (<<pantaloons >>.)” ( JAMET, 2009 , p.19).

One more important research into clipping of common nouns is the comparative study between Latvian⁵ and English languages by Veisbergs which reveals that

[…] clipping takes a more prominent place in English than in Latvian, where the multimorphemic words are often the result of several affixes which cannot be deleted for grammatical reasons. Also the new clipped form in Latvian is much more complex – while an English word, after losing its elements is “ready” for use, Latvian clipping is still to be supplied with a derivational suffix and inflectional ending. ( VEISBERGS, 1999 , p.154).

The studies cited above create a more comprehensive view of the clipping process by addressing semantic, morphological and phonological aspects ( BEHERA; MISHRA, 2013 ; VEISBERGS, 1999 ; CARTER; CLOPPER, 2002 ; JAMET, 2009 ; PLAG, 2003 ). However, they do not shed light on clipping of personal nouns and many questions regarding the nature of the process as well as its similarities and differences with clipping of common nouns remain unanswered.

From the lexicological point of view, the usage of hypocoristic forms as first names creates new first names. Consequently, this phenomenon can be considered as a linguistics source of anthroponymical neologisms. This issue has been addressed by the Brazilian research project “Todos os Nomes” (All the names) where neological names have been treated as the ones registered in the sample (a collection of students names of Universidade Federal da Bahia (Bahia’s Federal University) drawn in 2007, 2008 and 2009, but not included in Antenor Nascente´s dictionary published in 1950 or not found in the Bible. However, the aim of this article is not to investigate neologisms but to compare the processes which result in the shortened forms of first names and the usage of hypocoristic forms as official first names in Brazil and Lithuania.

The paper detailing this research is organized in seven sections. The first presents hypocoristics as a result of clipping processes; the second defines and compares hypocoristic forms and first names; the third describes the morphological process of clipping of first names in BP and in LT; the fourth analyses the correlation between the number of syllables in full names and their hypocoristic forms; the fifth demonstrates the usage of first names of hypocoristic origin formed by clipping in BP; the sixth describes the usage of first names of hypocoristic origin formed by clipping in LT; the seventh renders a comparative analysis between BP and LT data. Some final remarks are made in the conclusion section.

Hypocoristics as a result of clipping processes

The research starts with an investigation whether hypocoristics formed by clipping as well as clipping processes themselves are described in prescriptive grammars of the languages involved: Lithuanian and Brazilian Portuguese.

As for Lithuanian grammars, Ambrazas (1997) does not provide information about hypocoristic forms of first names, while Mathiassen (1996) uses the adjectival form of the term in a section devoted to noun diminutives and relates it to the sense of diminutive forms: “The suffixes labelled diminutive are extremely common and numerous […]. They mostly have a hypocoristic meaning and express familiarity, emotionality rather than small size.” (MATHIASSEN, 1996, p.55). Mathiassen’s examples include the masculine first name Jonas and its hypocoristic form Jonukas , and the feminine first name Alma and its hypocoristic form Almutė . These are cases of hypocoristic forms but they are not made by clipping.

Regarding grammars of Brazilian Portuguese, hypocoristic forms of first names are not mentioned in Cunha and Cintra ( CUNHA; CINTRA, 1985 ), while the definition, explanation and examples are found in the grammar of Almeida. Among the examples, there are some of clipped forms of first names: “In familiar contexts, proper names have endings or special forms; those familiar or childish words are called hypocoristics, especially when a syllable is reduplicated within the name.”⁶ ( ALMEIDA, 1961 , p.119, our translation). This grammar contains almost twenty examples. Some are of clipped first names, including the masculine first names Domingos - Mingu, Joaquim - Quim, José - Zé, and the feminine first names Aparecida - Cida, Carlota - Lota ( ALMEIDA, 1961 ).

Based on the grammars considered, on the prescriptive level, hypocoristic forms of first names made by clipping were not given much attention (except for Almeida’s grammar). From the point of view of descriptive linguistics, there are some previous studies on the subject.

As for Lithuanian anthroponymic research, there are the studies of Sinkevičiūtė (2006a, 2006b, 2002) who has written a monograph and at least two articles about hypocoristics. In the monograph, she analyses the surnames that originated from the clippings of old Lithuanian double-stemmed personal names (SINKEVIČIŪTĖ, 2006a). In one article, she discusses trends in clipping of dual-stemmed personal names in colloquial speech ( SINKEVIČIŪTĖ, 2002 ), while in the other article, she deals with the analysis of surnames of clipping origin in Vilnius area (SINKEVIČIŪTĖ, 2006b). Although related to hypocoristic processes, Sinkevičiūtė’s studies deal with names from the historical and sociological point of view, but they are not aimed at hypocoristics used as official first names and do not apply a comparative approach.

In Brazil, on the contrary, there are studies focusing on how a first name can be clipped resulting in a hypocoristic form. There is Monteiro’s investigation in Ceará, a capital city of one state in the northeast region of Brazil. The Brazilian linguist randomly collected 9,000 hypocoristic forms that later constituted the basis for a hypocoristic Brazilian dictionary. He has analyzed the data aiming to discover productive rules for the formation of hypocoristic names in Brazil on the basis of Generative Morphology (MONTEIRO, 1982).

More recent studies still use Monteiro’s seminal study as a reference, including the research carried out by da Silva and Silva (2000) whose results confirmed Monteiro’s study. Their research involved undergraduate students of Language and Literature of the Federal University of Pernambuco – another capital city of northeast Brazilian region. The researchers collected and analysed 60 first names and their respective 105 hypocoristics. Moreover, Lucini wrote a doctoral dissertation which was based on Monteiro’s data and focused on a field research with 160 teenager students of a middle class confessional private school in the city of Porto Alegre, a capital city of south Brazilian region (LUCINI, 2010).

Both studies have corroborated Monteiro’s findings, especially on the productive rules and clippings processes which are more frequently observed in formation of hypocoristic first names. Due to corroboration of Monteiro’s findings on the one hand, and the lack of specific research about clipping of first names in the Lithuanian language on the other, the point of departure of this research is the productive rules described by the Brazilian researcher.

Hypocoristics and first names

Various specialized reference resources define the term “hypocoristic” rather vaguely and the emphasis often falls on different aspects of the concept (see MATTHEWS, 2007 , p.180; BUSSMANN, 2006 , p.213; BUTTERFIELD, 2003 , p.804; INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF ONOMASTICS SCIENCES, [20-]). As stated in the Introduction of this article, Amaral´s definition (AMARAL, 2011) of hypocoristics is the most relevant to this research; however, the term still needs to be specified and, for the purpose of this study, it can be defined as a kind of name which is derived from a full form of first name by means of clipping . These shortened names can be used as secondary, non-official names or nicknames, and as primary names or official names. The latter ones are of a particular interest for this research.

One more thing which is important to consider within the framework of binary opposition is that one and the same name can be seen as primary or as secondary. For example, an official name Algis, which is recorded in one’s documents (birth certificate, passport, etc.), is a primary name. However, a person, whose official name is Algimantas, can be called Algis in various unofficial or semi-official situations, and the latter usage should be treated as secondary.

It is also important to distinguish hypocoristic names from other types of personal names as first names, bynames, nicknames, pseudonyms, internet chat names etc. The distinction between first names and hypocoristic forms is clear: first names are always primary and official, while the status of hypocoristics may shift depending on certain factors (see the two paragraphs above).

The difference between hypocoristics and bynames or nicknames⁷ is not so clearly cut. Pragmatically, bynames

[…] are functionally secondary since they do not necessary serve as a form of address, but rather as a means of further identification and expressivity […]. Furthermore, bynames are chronologically secondary: they come into use after the given name as an additional naming category. (VAN LANGENDONK, 2007, p.195).

From a historical point of view, bynames were created after first names in anthroponymic systems of various languages. However, Van Langendonk (2007, p.189) claims that “[…] it need not be excluded that this secondary personal name category developed rather early, at first in the realm of diminutive expressive formations (hypocoristics) and later on, in augmentative formations (nicknames).” Based on this statement, the difference between hypocoristics and bynames is in the type of morpheme used: if it is augmentative, the name gains a pejorative meaning and is considered as a nickname, and if the name has a diminutive morpheme, the name gains an affective positive meaning and is considered as a hypocoristic. However, Van Langendonk’s statement is not precise. At least in BP, it is not possible to state that all names with augmentative suffix are always nicknames. If a man named Paulo (Paul) is called Paulão (big Paul), the usage of augmentative suffix is considered to be positive in Brazilian culture. On the contrary, if a feminine name Rita adds the same suffix and becomes Ritona (big Rita), the woman bearing this name can be seen as too big, and the usage of the suffix results in a depreciative nickname.

In addition, Van Langendonk’s claim does not cover the cases where a hypocoristic is a clipped form of a first name.⁸ Hypocoristics are popular anthroponyms usually given by other people and occur in different social contexts, but they are not used to express a characteristic of the name bearer as is the case of a nickname. Nicknames are different from pseudonyms and internet chat names because the former are given by others while the latter are names that the person gives to himself/herself. However, hypocoristic forms may also function as pseudonyms because nothing/nobody can prevent a person from asking to be addressed by a hypocoristic form of his/her name.

All things considered, this research focuses on hypocoristics which are (1) derived by clipping first names, and (2) used as primary official first names. Other features assigned to hypocoristics, including diminutive meaning, augmentative morphemes, etc., are disregarded here.

Formation processes of clipped hypocoristic forms of first names in Brazilian Portuguese and Lithuanian

Before starting the linguistic analysis, some basic information about the languages involved – Portuguese and Lithuanian – should be provided. One of the most important and major differences between the languages is that in Portuguese, “[…] syntactic function is mainly related to word order” while, in Lithuanian, it “is shown by word declension.” ( SEIDE; PETRULIONĖ, 2018 , p.1204). As distinct from Lithuanian, the word endings of nouns carry information only about grammatical gender and number in Portuguese. The examples below illustrate some important contrastive grammatical information which is relevant to this paper⁹ .

Pedr - o ¹⁰

Peter – M.SG

'Peter '

(1)Portuguese

O Pedr- o

ART –DEF.M.SG – Peter – M.S.G .

The Peter

'Peter '

(2)Lithuanian

Petr-as

Peter –NOM.SG.

(3)Portuguese

O Pedro me ve

The Peter- SBJ me-OBJ 1 SG see – PRS.3SG.

'Peter sees me'

(4)Lithuanian

Petr-as mane mat-o

Peter- NOM, SG. me – ACC.SG see - PRS.3SG.

'Peter sees me '

(5)Portuguese

Eu vej-o o Pedr-o

I- SUBJ, 1SG see –PRS.1SG, the Peter - OBJ

'I see Peter '

(6)Lithuanian

Aš mat-au Petr-ą

I – NOM.1SG. see - PRS.1SG Peter-ACC.M.SG.

'I see Peter '

( SEIDE; PETRULIONĖ, 2018 , p.1204)

The examples above are masculine names. Masculine gender is expressed by the ending – o in Portuguese,¹¹ while Lithuanian masculine names have the inflectional ending – as . Those morphemes are prototypical in both languages. But there are the other ones

The most common endings of masculine nouns in the nominative singular are highlighted in bold in the following examples: darb as (work), jaunim as (youth), lietuv is (Lithuanian), arkl ys (horse), liet us (rain), skaič i us (number). ( AMBRAZAS, 1997 , p.99-100).

In the Portuguese language, masculine gender of the noun is expressed mainly by endings –o […], e.g. alun o (student) […] with certain exceptions¹² . ( CUNHA; CINTRA, 1985 , p.184).

Generally speaking, nouns which entered the languages by means of lexical borrowing and which share the same etymological stem and meaning differ only by their masculine endings: bank as – banc o (bank), eur as – euro (euro), telefon as – telefon e (telephone), klub as – club e (club). (SEIDE; PETRULIONĖ, p.1205-1206, 2018).

Regarding feminine nouns, the prototypical examples have endings –a in the Portuguese language ( CUNHA; CINTRA, 1985 ). As for feminine personal names, there some names that have endings formed by a variant morpheme -e as in the pairs Adriana –Adriane, Daniela–Daniele , etc.

In the Lithuanian language, the prototypical endings of feminine nouns are –a and –ė in nominative singular. There are also others morphemes, such as -i, -is, -uo , but they are not used in female personal names ( AMBRAZAS, 1997 ). The following feminine common and proper nouns may serve as examples: teta (aunt), duktė (daughter), Kristina and Adelė .

Based on Monteiro’s research (1982) it is possible to describe seven different processes of clipping of first names. To verify whether the processes described by Monteiro also applies to the Lithuanian language, the data available on VLKK website was analysed. This comparison has enabled to find the evidence about the existence of the same processes in Lithuanian. It is worthy to note that the Lithuanian website provides first names along with their hypocoristic forms, while on IBGE site, there is no information about how the first names can be shortened.

The first process considered is fore-clipping or the drop of the syllable before the stressed syllable in three syllable words. In the following examples, the tonic syllable is in bold letters. In BP, the first name Fer nan do (m.) and Na tá lia (f.) can be reduced by dropping the first syllable thus creating hypocoristics which consist of two syllables: Nando and Tália . This process can be also found in LT as in the example of the hypocoristic Minas, a clipping from Gedi mi nas (m). However, in the Lithuanian language, not only unstressed syllables, but also the stressed ones can be dropped. Moreover, the latter process seems to be more frequent as evidenced by a great number of examples, including Mantas from Do mantas (m.), Vydas from Taut vydas (m.). In addition, there are plenty of feminine Lithuanian names where initial syllables are dropped both before stressed and unstressed syllables, for instance, Gailė from Rin gai lė (f), Leta from Viole ta (f). All things considered, the first process described by Monteiro somewhat differs in the languages under analysis. In Lithuanian, initial clipping does not depend on the word stress, while in Brazilian Portuguese, initial clipping before the stressed syllable is common as in Zé from Jo sé

The second process registered in both languages is back-clipping or the drop of one or two final syllables or their parts. It is the case of Edu as the hypocoristic form of Eduardo (m.) in PB, which is a process equivalent to Benas as the hypocoristic form of Benediktas ¹³ (m.) and Domas as a shortened version of Domantas (m.) in LT. Feminine anthroponyms can be illustrated with the following examples: Madá is a hypocoristic form of Madalena (f.) in PB, while Austė is a hypocoristic form of Austėja (f.) and Alba is a hypocoristic form of Albertina (f.) in LT. The only difference between the languages is that the final syllables of the whole first name are clipped in Portuguese, while in Lithuanian, the final syllables of the stem (the part of word which is common to all its inflected variants) are dropped. As mentioned earlier, Lithuanian is a richly inflected language with two genders, seven cases and two numbers for nouns, including the proper ones. Consequently, both a full first name and its hypocoristic form must have an inflection.

The name Albertina also exists in Brazilian anthroponymy, but, according to Monteiro’s data, the hypocoristic forms do not coincide: the name Albertina gives Berta in BP,¹⁴ and Alberta or Alba in LT. The same applies to equivalent masculine names Dominykas and Domingos: the Brazilian counterpart for Domas is Mingu ( ALMEIDA, 1961 ). Consequently, despite the existence of identical processes in both languages, there is no guarantee that one and the same or an equivalent name will be clipped identically. These examples serve as evidence that equivalent first names may have different hypocoristic forms in each of the languages.

In the case of Berta as a hypocoristic of Albertina , there is the drop of the first and final syllables or back-and-fore-clipping, and this is the third process which is productive in both languages. For example, Pita is a hypocoristic of the first name Epitácio (m.) in BP, while Melė is a hypocoristic form of Amelija (f.) and Genė of Eugenija (f.) in LT.

The fourth process is middle clipping which also occurs in both languages. In BP, Quino is the hypocoristic form of Quirino (m.) and Marla of Marcela (f.); correspondingly, there are Vilmas as a clipped form of Vilhelmas (m.) and Nilė of Nijolė (f.) in LT.

The fifth process common to both languages is clipping with the drop of syllable and consonant alteration. The process can be illustrated with the pairs Mu r ilo – Lilo (m.) and Fran c isca – Quica (f.) in PB, in LT, and there is the pair Doman t as – Man čius (m.).

Besides these five processes in common, there are two processes in PB which are not productive in LT and, on the contrary, there is one process which is productive only in LT. For the Lithuanian language, it is the clipping with morphological variation. For example, the first name Emilija (f.) has two variants of hypocoristic forms – Mil a and Mil ė where the different endings correspond to different morphemes of feminine gender. The same happens in the hypocoristic forms of Danielius (m.) that has different endings corresponding to different morphemes of masculine gender Dan as , Dan is, Dan ys, Dan ius.

A process peculiar to BP is reduplication of syllables with the drop of consonant resulting in a shortened form as in Augusto - Gugu (m.) and Glória - Gogó (f.). The next process specific only to BP is the creation of one single hypocoristic form out of a compound name. In such a way, Cadu is a hypocoristic form of Carlos Eduardo (m.). The first syllable Ca comes from the name Carlos, while the second syllable du comes from the name Eduardo . The eight morphological processes of clipping observed in Lithuanian and Brazilian Portuguese are summarised in Table 1¹⁵ .

Table 1
– Comparison of morphological processes of clipping in BP and LT

Clipping process	Examples in BP	Examples in LT
1. Fore-clipping: 1.1. before the tonic	Fer nan do -Nando 14 Na tá lia -Tália	Gedi mi nas - Minas Au gu stas - Gustas Rin gai lė - Gailė,
1.2. when the word stress has no impact	--------------------------	Vio le ta - Leta Do mantas - Mantas
2. Back-clipping	Edu ar do - Edu Mada le na - Madá	Ben e dik t as - Benas Aus t ė j a - Austė Alb er ti n a - Alba
3. Back-and fore-clipping	E pi tá cio - Pita; Al ber t i na - Berta	A me l ija - Melė Eu ge n ija - Genė
4. Middle clipping	Qui ri no - Quino Mar ce la - Marla	Vil hel mas - Vilmas Ni jo lė - Nilė
5. Clipping with consonant alteration	Mu ri lo - Lilo; Fran ci s ca - Quica	Do mantas - Man č ius Mar ty n as - Mar č ius
6. Clipping with morphological variation	--------------------------	E mi l ija - Mil a , Mil ė Danielius - Danas , Dan is , Dan ys , Dan ius Vac lov as - Vacius, Vacys
7. Reduplication and drop of a consonant	Au gu s to - Gugu G l ó ria - Gogó	--------------------------
8. Clipping of parts of a compound name	Ca r los E du ar do - Cadu Ma ria Isa bel - Mabel	--------------------------

Source:¹⁶

As evidenced by the results shown in Table 1 , the morphological processes of clipping of first names have more similarities than differences in both languages, although equivalent first names may have different hypocoristic forms in each language. For example, Augustas (LT) and Augusto (BP) are equivalent masculine names, but Lithuanian hypocoristic is Gustas, and its Portuguese counterparts are Gugu and Guto. Gustas and Guto are formed by fore-clipping, while reduplication and drop of a consonant is employed in Gugu .

Correlation between the number of syllables in full names and their hypocoristic forms

In an attempt to correlate the number of syllables of a full first name and the existence of a clipped form, lists of full names and their hypocoristic forms have been analysed in BP and LT. As mentioned earlier, clipping is the process of forming a hypocoristic (or a new word in general) by dropping one or more syllables from a polysyllabic name (or word). If a name has two syllables, the hypocoristic form would have just one, if it has three syllables, the hypocoristic form can have one or two and so on. Consequently, in the given languages, there can be a tendency or preference to form hypocoristic forms from names with a certain number of syllables.

To form a list of hypocoristic forms in BP, 36 first names collected by Silva and da Silva have been used ( DA SILVA; SILVA, 2000 ). This list contains only 6 two-syllable names, but there are 15 three-syllable names and 14 four-syllable names (e.g. José - Zé ; Cristina - Cris ; Adriana - Adri ). The data analysis has shown that in BP, there is a preference to shorten names which have more than two syllables.

The analysis of the 23 most popular names mentioned on Vardai site (a subsite of VLKK) has exhibited slightly different tendencies in the Lithuanian language. There are no clipped forms for two-syllable names. Only 3 names out of the total 14 three-syllable names have no reduced forms, while all four-syllable names have their hypocoristic forms. These results are shown in Table 2 below.

Table 2
– Correlation between the number of syllables of full names and their clipped forms in LT

Two-syllable first names without clipped forms	Three-syllable first names and their clipped forms	More than three syllable first names and their clipped forms
Jonas	Adomas - Adas, Adis, Adžius	Dominykas - Domas
Joris	Augustas - Augas, Augis, Augius, Augys, Gustas, Gustis	Amelija - Ama, Amalė, Amelė, Malė, Melė
Kajus	Domantas - Domas, Mančius , Mantas, Mantis
Ieva	Danielius - Danas, Danis, Danius, Danys
Lėja	Dovydas - Dovas, Dovis
Liepa	Gabrielius - Gabrys
Luknė	Emilis - Emas, Emis, Milas, Milius
Ugnė	Austėja - Austė, Austa
Urtė	Gabija - Gabė
Viltė	Gabrielė - Gabrė, Gabė
	Kamilė - no clipped form
	Jokūbas - no clipped form
	Rugilė - no clipped form

Source:

These results shed some light on possible morphological constraints on the productive rules for clipping of names in LT. Table 2 contains many two-syllable names, especially the feminine ones, which have no hypocoristic forms, for instance, Urtė (f.), Viltė (f), Nojus (m.). This is a very natural phenomenon, because Lithuanian is a highly inflected language (as opposed to Portuguese) and two-syllable names cannot be reduced to one syllable since the final syllable is always an inflection with syntactic function. On the contrary, when a Lithuanian name has more than two syllables, it is possible to clip the name as in Gabija – Gabė (f.), or Emilija – Ema (f.). However, some three-syllable names have no hypocoristic forms, for instance, the names Jokūbas (m.), Kamilė (f.), Sofija (f). As mentioned earlier, the tonicity of the syllable is not a constraint on Lithuanian productive rules for forming hypocoristic names.

The usage of hypocoristic forms as first names in Brazilian Portuguese

In Monteiro’s (1982) study, hypocoristic forms used as first names were analysed. As his data was limited in terms of location (the city of Ceará) and time (the beginning of the 1980s), the usage of those forms as first names has been verified with IBGE data considering the period from 1980 to 2009. It is important to note that IBGE data has been collected from interviews of residents in Brazil and each of the names is assigned to a particular decade according a respondent’s date of birth. For example, if a person was born in 1983, his/her name was registered in the 1980’s.

The official Brazilian website also contains quantitative information about the usage of first names. When it is statistically relevant, information on how many times the name was used in a particular decade is provided, and when the name is statistically insignificant, the total number of occurrences for the whole period covered by IBGE (1930-2009) is given. Thereby in this research, the first names had their usage measured by occurrences in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

Monteiro’s examples of hypocoristics used as oficial first names are the following: Álber from Alberto, Ari from Aristeu, Celina from Marcelina, Délio from Cordélio, Érico from Américo, Gil from Gilberto, Gildo from Agildo, Lia from Amália, Nilo from Danilo, Oto from Otoniel, Tânia from Betânia , and Valdo from Oswaldo ( MONTEIRO, 1982 ). All these names have been confirmed by IBGE data, although the hypocoristic names can correlate with full forms of first names, i.e. first names of hypocoristic origin can be homonymic to other first names. In other words, there is no guarantee whether a name is an original first name or an original hypocoristic form. Consequently, statistical information on homonymic names has not been considered. For example, that is the case for the three feminine names from Monteiro´s list Celina, Lia and Tânia . All of them are homonymous to full names, and it is difficult to find out whether the full name or the hypocoristic form of the full name has been used. Table 3 presents some hypocoristic forms mentioned by Monteiro which are used as official first names in BP according to IBGE data.

Table 3
– The usage of hypocoristic forms adopted as first names in BP

Monteiro’s data (1982)	IBGE data: 1980-2009	IBGE data
		1980s	1990s	2000s
Álber	registered	148	116	86
Ari	registered	3,316	1,620	867
Délio	registered	482	180	87
Gil	registered	2,345	1,063	549
Gildo	registered	2,942	1,239	468
Gino	registered	293	220	77
Nilo	registered	1,514	1,000	561

Source:

As shown in Table 3 , the usage of non-homonymic hypocoristic forms used as official first names decreased in the 2000s if compared to their usage in the 1980s and 1990s.

The next step is related to the comparison of the usage of first names and their hypocoristic forms in BP. Table 4 presents the results of the comparison.

Table 4
– Comparison of the usage of first names and their hypocoristics in BP

Full first names	Occurrences	Hypocoristic as a first name	Occurrences in total
Agildo	413	Gildo	4,652
Alberto	17,868	Álber	350
Aristeu	1,071	Ari	5,824
Cordélio	3815	Délio	746
Danilo	211,683	Nilo	3,075
Higino	223	Gino	590
Gilberto	60,843	Gil	3,957

Source:¹⁷

When the usage of first names is compared to the usage of hypocoristic names (see Table 4 ), the clipped form is more often used just in the cases when the full name is not a frequent name in Brazil, i.e. the number of occurrences for the three decades hardly exceeds 400. These names include Agildo/Gildo, Higino/Gino and Cordélio/Nélio . The popularity of the hypocoristic Ari can be explained that it is a clipping not only of Aristeu , but also of Ariovaldo . On the contrary, when the full first name is frequent (the number of occurrences ranges from approximately 18 to 61 thousand), it is much more often used than its clipped form. This result indicates that the usage of hypocoristic forms as first names in Brazil is a part of the first name attribution process in Brazil. Nevertheless, none of the clipped names mentioned by Monteiro are among the most popular names according to IBGE.¹⁸

Having in mind the above considerations and the fact that Monteiro’s data was generated 30 years ago, it was investigated (1) whether more popular first names derived from hypocoristic forms have the same tendency of being less used nowadays, and (2 whether the full names are also preferred to their shortened forms. For this purpose, the hypocoristic forms Beto, Zé and Cida , and their full names ( Roberto and Gilberto, José, and Aparecida, respectively) have been chosen. Table 5 presents the comparison of the usage of first names and their hypocoristics in BP for the whole period covered by IBGE data, while Table 6 shows in which decades, i.e. 1980s, 1990s or 2000s, the hypocoristic forms were used as first names. The data about the usage of popular names (see Table 5 ) corroborate the analysis of Monteiro’s data on the preference of full names when compared to their hypocoristic forms. Moreover, the decreasing tendency of the usage of the hypocoristic forms during the decades under analysis (see Table 6 ) has been also confirmed.

Table 5
– Comparison of the usage of popular first names and their hypocoristics in BP

Full first names	Occurrences	Hypocoristic as a first name	Occurrences
Gilberto	213,266	Beto	3,774
Roberto	437,288	Beto	3,774
Aparecida	304,024	Cida	5,538
José	5,754,529	Zé	112,799

Source: Author’s elaboration.

Table 6
– The usage of hypocoristic forms of popular names adopted as first names in BP

Names	IBGE data
	1980s	1990s	2000s
Beto	1,030	441	283
Cida	873	264	095
Zé	1,867	951	456

Source:

The usage of hypocoristic forms as first names in the Lithuanian language

To obtain similar data about the usage of hypocoristic forms as official first names in Lithuania, other procedures have been applied. First, based on the lists of the most popular first names given to the newborns from 2006 to 2017,¹⁹a list of 16 feminine and 17 masculine names has been compiled. Among the other names, the list includes 7 hypocoristic forms which are officially used as first names, 8 out of 17 masculine names and 4 out of 16 feminine names have hypocoristic forms, even though they are not among the most popular official names. It should be noted that the phenomenon of homonymy also exists between Lithuanian first names and hypocoristic forms. Table 7 presents the data on the most popular first names in Lithuania and provides their hypocoristic forms (if such exist).

Table 7
– Most popular first names and their hypocoristic forms according to VLKK data

Masculine names and hypocoristic forms	Feminine names and hypocoristic forms
Adomas - Adas, Adis,Adžius	Amelija - Ama, Amalė, Amelė, Malė, Melė
Augustas - Augas, Augis, Augius, Augys, Gustas, Gustis	Austėja - Austė, Austa
Benas (it is a hypocoristic form)	Gabija - Gabė
Danielius - Danas, Danis, Danius, Danys	Gabrielė - Gabrė, Gabė
Domantas - Domas, Mančius, Mantas, Mantis	Emilija - Ema, Emila, Emilė, Mila, Milė
Domas (it is a hypocoristic form)	Ema (it is a hypocoristic form)
Dominykas - Domas	Ieva
Dovydas - Dovas, Dovis	Kamilė
Emilis 18 - Emas, Emis, Milas, Milius	Lėja
Gabrielius - Gabrys	Liepa
Jokūbas	Luknė
Jonas	Ugnė
Joris (it is a hypocoristic form)	Urtė (it is a hypocoristic form)
Kajus (it is a hypocoristic form)	Sofija
Lukas (it is a hypocoristic form)	Rugilė
Matas (it is a hypocoristic form)	Viltė (it is a hypocoristic form)
Nojus	-----------

Source:²⁰

To find out about the usage of hypocoristic forms as official first names in LT, all the hypocoristic forms listed in Table 7 have been entered into VLKK database and checked if and how often they were used during the period from 1980 to 2009, i.e. for the same period as the data from IBGE has been collected. It is important to note that VLKK data comes from the totality of birth records and the total number of occurrences can be retrieved for a pre-selected period. The results for masculine anthroponyms are provided in Table 8 and for feminine anthroponyms in Table 9 .

Table 8
– The usage of hypocoristic forms of the most popular masculine first names in LT

Masculine hypocoristic forms	VLKK data: 1980-2009	VLKK data
		1980s	1990s	2000s
Adas (Adomas)	registered	97	106	212
Adis	registered	2	0	3
Adžius	not registered	not registered	not registered	not registered
Augas (Augustas)	not registered	not registered	not registered	not registered
Augis	registered	16	22	11
Augius	registered	1	1	2
Augys	not registered	not registered	not registered	not registered
Gustas	registered	8	120	1014
Gustis	registered	0	1	9
Danius (Danielius)	registered	48	20	15
Danys	registered	1	0	0
Danis	registered	0	1	5
Danas	registered	223	151	236
Domas (Domantas or Dominykas)	registered	418	550	1,074
Mančius	registered	0	1	0
Mantas	registered	6,252	7,197	3,353
Mantis	registered	0	0	1
Dovas (Dovydas)	registered	1	3	41
Dovis	registered	0	2	3
Emas (Emilis)	registered	0	3	8
Emis	registered	0	0	1
Milas	registered	0	1	0
Milius	registered	0	1	8
Gabrys (Gabrielius)	registered	0	1	0

Source:

Table 9
– The usage of hypocoristic forms of the most popular feminine first names in LT

Feminine hypocoristic forms	VLKK data: 1980-2009	VLKK data
		1980s	1990s	2000s
Ama (Amelija)	not registered	not registered	not registered	not registered
Amalė	not registered	not registered	not registered	not registered
Amelė	not registered	not registered	not registered	not registered
Malė	not registered	not registered	not registered	not registered
Melė	not registered	not registered	not registered	not registered
Emila (Emilja)	registered	0	1	2
Emilė	registered	9	114	328
Mila	registered	1	4	74
Milė	registered	1	2	11
Gabė (Gabija or Gabrielė)	registered	0	0	1
Austė (Austėja)	registered	69	149	125
Austa	registered	1	1	0

Source:

The numbers in Table 8 show that if a masculine name has more than one hypocoristic form, just one is preferred as a first name. For example, Adas , a reduced form of Adomas , is much more frequent than Adis . The same applies to Gustas (from Augustas ), Danas (from Danielius), Dovas (from Dovydas) , and Emas ( from Emilis) . Moreover, only 3 hypocoristic forms out of 22 included into VLKK database have not been used as first names at all.

The hypocoristic forms Domas, Mančius, Mantas and Mantis deserve a more detailed analysis, because the phenomenon of homonyms arises once again at this point of the research. The first hypocoristic coincides with two first names – Dominykas and Domantas ; therefore, it is not possible to find out which of the two names this hypocoristic form is related to. According to VLKK data, the other three hypocoristic forms, i.e. Mančius, Mantas and Mantis, can be related to several first names which end in – mantas , for instance Rimantas and Algimantas . However, in contemporary Lithuanian, Rimantas is usually shortened as Rimas , and Algimantas has a recognized hypocoristic Algis ( KUZAVINIS; SAVUKYNAS, 2007 ).

The number of occurrences of the hypocoristic forms used as official first names indicates that during the three decades under analysis, their usage gradually increased. In the 1990s, they were used more often than in the 1980s, but most masculine hypocoristic names have their peaks of usage in the 2000s.

As the results in Table 9 indicate, the usage of hypocoristic forms as feminine first names are the following: 5 reduced forms out of 9 mentioned on VLKK website have not been used as first names at all and just two names Austė and Emilė have been frequently used. However, the numbers evidence an increasing usage of feminine hypocoristics (except for Austa ) during the period under analysis.

As can be seen in Tables 8 and 9 , the majority of hypocoristic forms have been found in VLKK database. Just 3 out of 24 masculine names and 5 out of 12 feminine names have not been registered as first names, although the number of registered occurrences varies.

To find out if hypocoristic forms have been preferred to original first names, the comparative analysis of the usage of each of the names during the period from 1980 to 2009 has been performed. When there was more than one hypocoristic form of a name, all forms have been considered and counted as the total number of occurrences. Homonyms have not been included into the analysis following the same procedures as in the analysis of Brazilian data. The comparison of the usage of Lithuanian first names and their hypocoristics is shown in Table 10 .

Table 10
– Comparison of the usage of first names and their hypocoristics in LT

Full first names	Occurrences	Hypocoristic as a first name	Occurrences in total
Adomas	1,606	Adas, Adis	416
Augustas	2,037	Augis, Augius	49
Danielius	1,964	Danas, Danis, Danius, Danys	699
Domantas	3,080	Domas (hom.), Mančius, Mantas, Mantis	18,846
Dominykas	4,276	Domas (hom.)	2,042
Dovydas	6,450	Dovas	045
Emilis	1,525	Emas, Emis, Milas, Milius	022
Gabrielius	1,536	Gabrys	001
Gabija	7,102	Gabė	001
Austėja	3,796	Austė, Austa	345
Emilja	2	Emila, Emilė, Mila, Mile	547

Source:

The comparison between 11 pairs or sets of full and hypocoristic forms of first names shows that 2 complete names ( Gabija and Gabrielius ) are much more frequently used than their reduced forms, while the usage of reduced forms of other names, such as Adomas, Danielius and Austėja, is relatively frequent, although it does not exceed the usage of full forms of names. On the other hand, there are two first names, Emilja (f.) and Domantas (m.) , which are much more rarely used than their hypocoristic forms.

Moreover, the number of occurrences of hypocoristic forms of the first name Domantas is considerably higher than of other hypocoristics and even of the initial full form. It could be related to the fact that Domas is a homonym of the reduced form of full name Dominykas , and hypocoristics Mantas, Mantis and Mančius are also related to other first names with – antas ending as in Rimantas and Algimantas . This polysemy can lead to a weaker relationship between a hypocoristic form and its possible correlates which results in transformation of the name statute. In such a way, the name Mantas can be perceived as a new first name by native speakers and not as a hypocoristic form of another name. If it is the case, the opacification and autonomization of clipped common nouns in the English language pointed out by Jamet (2009) also applies to proper nouns, at least in LT.

The numbers in Tables 8 , 9 , 10 show that the usage of hypocoristic forms as first names is more common for masculine anthroponyms rather than feminine. Altogether, the usage of hypocoristic forms as official first names is significant in Lithuania and this phenomenon can be treated as a contemporary tendency.

Comparative Analysis

Morphological processes of clipping of proper names are rather similar in Brazilian Portuguese and Lithuanian languages (see Table 1 ): 5 out of 8 morphological processes described in this paper are equivalent in both languages, while 2 processes are specific only to BP and 1 process is observed only in LT. Nevertheless, equivalent full names can be clipped by applying different processes. For example, the hypocoristic forms of the feminine first name Alberta is Alba in LT and Berta in BP. The former is formed by back-clipping, while the latter by fore-clipping.

Monteiro’s findings about hypocoristic forms used as first names are confirmed by IBGE data as all the hypocoristic forms were registered as official first names in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s (see Table 3 ). The number of occurrences (see Tables 4 , 5 and 6 ) demonstrates that hypocoristic names are less used if compared to full forms of names. Besides, according to IBGE, hypocoristic names are not popular as none is mentioned among the most popular first names. Moreover, Monteiro´s list contains only three feminine names but all of them are homonymous to full first names. Consequently, it is impossible to find out whether there are any differences between the usage of feminine and masculine hypocoristic forms.

LT data for the same period have shown that 21 out of 24 hypocoristic forms of the most popular masculine names have been used as official first names (see Table 8 ). Moreover, 5 hypocoristic forms have been included into the list of the most popular masculine first names. In terms of feminine anthroponyms, 7 out of 12 hypocoristic forms of the most popular feminine names have been used as official first names, and two of them have been used more frequently (see Table 9 ). In addition, the list of the most popular feminine first names includes three names of a hypocoristic origin.

The next stage of the comparative analysis focuses on the period when the hypocoristic forms were used as first names. According to IBGE data, the usage of hypocoristics was gradually decreasing during the period from 1980 to 2009 (see Table 3 ), while VLKK data demonstrates the increasing usage of most hypocoristic names during the three decades (see Tables 8 and 9 ). The comparative analysis has shown that the usage of hypocoristic forms as first names is quite different in each country. Monteiro’s data and the analysis of the usage of hypocoristc forms of most popular first names have shown that hypocoristic forms are used less and less each year, while the usage of hypocoristics as first names is a contemporary tendency in Lithuania.

However, there is one analytical problem that is common to both systems of personal names. It is not clear how to deal with homonyms, a phenomenon that occur a) between first names and hypocoristic names ( Domas in LT and Lia in BP) and b) between hypocoristic forms ( Beto for Roberto and Alberto in BP and Mantas for Rimantas and Domantas in LT).

Conclusions

In this research, the formation and usage of hypocoristic forms in Brazilian Portuguese and Lithuanian have been compared on the basis of statistical data available in each country and the previous study about Brazilian hypocoristic forms carried out by Monteiro in 1982 .

Despite the fact that there are common morphological processes in LT and BP, clipping of first names may undergo them differently in each of the languages. First, due to the more inflectional nature of the Lithuanian language, a two-syllable first names cannot be shortened, while this constraint does not exist in the Portuguese language. Secondly, the languages may have a different hypocoristic form of an equivalent full name, i.e. hypocoristic forms of the name are formed by applying different morphological processes.

The analysis of the usage of hypocoristic forms during the period from 1980 to 2009 has shown that in Brazil, the usage of hypocorictics as official first names is currently decreasing, while it is a contemporary tendency in Lithuania. Moreover, in the latter country, some hypocoristic forms have gained a considerable popularity and are recorded as the most popular official first names.

These results suggest that, on the one hand, clipping of first names tend to be a linguistic resource shared by both languages, BP and LT. On the other hand, the usage and popularity of hypocoristic forms used as official first names may differ.

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• 1
  Original: “ O hipocorístico pode ser compreendido como um item formado a partir de uma alteração morfológica (abreviação, diminutivo, aumentativo, etc.) de outro antropônimo. É usado geralmente em contextos familiares. Diferencia-se do apelido por ter sua origem em outro nome próprio .” ( AMARAL, 2011 , p.72).
• 2
  For more details on this type of anthroponomastic research see Seide (2016) .
• 3
  Latvian and Lithuanian are the only surviving members of the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. The extinct ones are Old Prussian, Sudovian, Selonian, Semigallian and Old Curonian.
• 4
  Original: “ No trato doméstico, os nomes próprios têm desinências ou formas especiais diminutivas; recebem o nome de hipocorísticos esses vocábulos familiares ou infantis, sobretudo quando neles há duplicação de sílabas .” ( ALMEIDA, 1961 , p.119).
• 5
  The terms “byname” and “nickname” are used interchangeably in this article, even though superordination of the former is not questioned. The synonymic usage is consistent with the main semantic component of their definitions, i.e. “additional, informal proper name” (see also INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF ONOMASTICS SCIENCES, [20-]; VAN LANGENDONK, 2007, p.118-119; HOUGH, 2016 , p.237-238)
• 6
  Van Langendonck (2007 , p.196) claims that hypocoristic forms should not be regarded as bynames.
• 7
  The examples have been glossed according to the Leipzig Glossing Rules (COMRIE; HASPELMATH; BICKEL, 2015).
• 8
  In fact, there is no feminine counterpart for the name Pedro, but it is glossed this way just to show different endings of masculine gender in both languages.
• 9
  Some Portuguese proper names have both masculine and feminine forms such as Paulo (m.) and Paula (f.), and others have only the masculine form ( Pedro ) or the feminine form ( Vanessa ).
• 10
  There are cases when one masculine or feminine noun indicates both masculine and feminine referents such as borboleta , fem. noun meaning “butterfly”. In other cases just the article points if reference is made to a male or female person. For example, the word estudante means a student. If there is a fem. article before the noun, reference is made to a woman: a estudante . On the contrary, if there is a masc. article, reference is made to a man: o estudante . There are also a few masculine words that end in “a” as in poema , “poem” and some masculine nouns that end in “i ” as in jabuti , a Brazilian kind of turtle.
• 11
  In LT, a part of the syllable but not the whole syllable is usually dropped: Be-ne-dik-tas – Be-nas (- as is an inflection).
• 12
  Berta can be also related to the first name Roberta.
• 13
  All tables presented in this article were created by the authors.
• 14
  Stressed syllables are underlined, while the dropped or altered parts are in bold.
• 15
  The whole period covered by IBGE, i.e. 1930-2009.
• 16
  The full list of the most frequent masculine names can be found at https://censo2010.ibge.gov.br/nomes/#/ranking and also in Seide and Petrulionè (2018).
• 17
  For more information see Seide and Petrulionè (2018).
• 18
  Emilis is a hypocoristic of Emilijus , but their relation will not be considered here because the research is based on the most popular names, and Emilis is the one in the list with its own hypocoristics Emas, Emis, Milas, Milius.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  05 Aug 2020
• Date of issue
  2020

History

• Received
  30 July 2018
• Accepted
  31 Mar 2019