Locateli, guisacho, bailongo and other appreciative derivations in Río de la Plata Spanish

Abstract

In this paper, we describe and analyze the usage of endings like -eli (crudeli), -oni (fiaconi) or -ola (gratarola) and morphemes like -ucho/-acho (zurdacho) and -(vowel)ng- (blandengue). We consider that these are three resources linked to the field of appreciative morphology, just as “vesre” or paronomasia, used to express affective, derogatory or attenuative values. In the first case, the italianistic formants arise from the adjective paronomasia and proper noun (loco/Locatelli > locateli) and from a reanalysis process (Di Tullio 2014), determining the morphologization of the final sequence, i.e. -eli. In the second case, there is a particular progression between -ucho, -cho and its allomorphs, which starts with the derogatory value of the general Spanish (papelucho), extends to the affective formation of hypocoristics (Pablucho) and, in particular, in the scope of colloquial Rioplatense Spanish, applies to common nouns or adjectives, with pejorative and, even, affective or positive self-assessment values (peroncho, zurdacho, comunacho). Finally, we describe the operation of the morpheme -(vowel)ng-, which is fundamentally related to the attenuative value. Also, these phenomena present a limited productivity and constitute a set of appreciative resources strongly associated with the colloquial Rio de la Plata Spanish or lunfardo.