The largesse of diminutives: suppressing the projection of roots * Laura Grestenberger & Dalina Kallulli University of Vienna 1. Introduction It is well-known that, across languages, verbs may contain “diminutive” affixes identical in form with those found in nouns (e.g. Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994, Wiltschko and Steriopolo 2007, De Belder, Faust, and Lampitelli 2014). This is shown in (1a) and (2a) for Standard German (henceforth: SG), in which the same affix -el- is used both in verbal and nominal diminutives. The same pattern is also found in Italian, as (1b) and (2b) show; note the use of the same affix, -ett-. Similarly, the Hebrew verbal and nominal diminutives in (1c) and (2c) use the same reduplication template, C 1 VC 2 C 3 VC 3 (Italian and Hebrew examples from De Belder, Faust, and Lampitelli 2014). (1) Verbal diminutives a. Standard German b. Italian c. Hebrew k ¨ och-el-n fischi-ett-are cixkek boil-DIM-3 SG. PRES whistle-DIM- INF giggle. V . DIM ‘to boil a little, to simmer’ ‘to emit short whistles’ ‘to giggle’ (2) Nominal diminutives a. Standard German b. Italian c. Hebrew Busch m. B ¨ usch-el n. fischi-o m. fischi-ett-o m. √ cxk cixkuk bush bush-DIM whistle-SG whistle-DIM- SG laugh laugh. N. DIM ‘bush’ ‘bunch, tuft’ ‘whistle’ ‘whistle’ (obj.) ‘laugh’ ‘a giggle’ In this paper, we take a closer look at Standard and Austro-Bavarian (primarily Vien- nese) German verbal diminutives like (1a). Our central claim is that these verbs are struc- turally denominal. More specifically, we propose that, just like in (2a), the diminutive affix in (1a) spells out the head of a diminutive nP, and that some of the morphosyntactic features * We are grateful to Hannes Fellner, Peter Hallman, Alan Nussbaum, Antonia Rothmayr, and the audience at NELS 49 for valuable comments and suggestions. Our names are listed in alphabetical order.