Joselito and calentito: diminutive enigmas

Abstract

Two exceptional diminutives exist that have received little attention in the relevant literature. Joselito is unusual because it takes the suffix -lito, which may come from the /l/ in José Luís since the two are the most frequent collocates. The early appearance of Joselito, along with the fact that most of the other words that take -lito were later borrowings into Spanish, suggests that Joselito was the first diminutive of its kind. It then served as an analog for the diminutives of subsequent borrowings that ended in stressed vowels (e.g. cafelito, bebelito). The diminutive variant -tito (e.g. cafetito, sofatito) is also discussed. Calentito stands out because it does not retain the diphthong of its base, caliente, as most diminutives do. Historically, diminutives did not have diphthongs prior to the 15th century when they adopted them. In the early 20th century grammarians both prescribed and dispreferred monophthongal diminutives, but in usage most monophthongal forms were eliminated with calentito emerging as the most common exception. However, contemporary corpus data attest the sporadic existence of other diminutives without diphthongs such as merendita and celito.