-culus
Latin
Etymology
Rebracketing of diminutive suffix -ulus on nouns ending in -cus, used freely.
Pronunciation
- (Classical Latin) IPA(key): /ku.lus/, [kʊɫ̪ʊs̠]
- (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /ku.lus/, [kulus] (stressed on the antepenult (third-to-last syllable); e.g., māsculus /ˈmaːs.ku.lus/)
Suffix
-culus (feminine -cula, neuter -culum); first/second-declension suffix
- Alternative form of -ulus
- added to a noun to form a diminutive of that noun.
- added to an adjective to form a diminutive of that adjective.
Usage notes
The ending -culus occurs originally and frequently in diminutives formed from third declension nouns with stems ending in /n/ or /s/. [1] It is used also with other third declension nouns, in particular r-stems, l-stems, and i-stems, and with fourth and fifth declension nouns. In the form -iculus, it is sometimes used instead of -ulus to form diminutives of other consonant stem nouns or of first or second declension nouns.[2] As with other Latin diminutive suffixes, the gender of the diminutive regularly matches the gender of the base noun.
The stem that the diminutive is built on sometimes differs from the stem found in the genitive singular of the base:
- Original s-stem nouns form diminutives in -s-cul-, without the rhotacism that affected intervocalic -s-.
- N-stem nouns (most of which have nominatives ending in -ō and oblique stems ending in -ōn- or -in-) form diminutives in -un-cul-, due to regular sound changes that turned ō or o into u before the cluster /nk/. After -uncul- developed in the diminutives of stems where /n/ was originally preceded by ō or o, this vocalism was extended by analogy to diminutives from stems that originally had other vowels before the stem-final /n/.
- Diminutives of consonant-stem nouns may add the short vowel /i/ before the -c- of the diminutive suffix; on the other hand, diminutives of i-stem nouns may delete (syncopate) this vowel. Diminutives of fourth declension nouns regularly replace the /u/ of the stem with /i/, as in acicula, corniculum and geniculum. A small number of nouns, such as canīcula, irregularly add the long vowel -ī-. Some third declension nouns with nominative singular forms ending in -ēs, such as nūbēs, form diminutives in -ēcul-, such as nūbēcula.
Examples:
- ōs (“mouth”) + -culus → ōsculum (“little mouth”)
- arbor (“tree”) + -culus → arbuscula (“shrub”)
- sermō + -culus → sermunculus (“rumor; small talk”)
- clāvis (“key”) + -culus → clāvicula (“little key”)
Declension
First/second-declension adjective.
| Number | Singular | Plural | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case / Gender | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | |
| Nominative | -culus | -cula | -culum | -culī | -culae | -cula | |
| Genitive | -culī | -culae | -culī | -culōrum | -culārum | -culōrum | |
| Dative | -culō | -culō | -culīs | ||||
| Accusative | -culum | -culam | -culum | -culōs | -culās | -cula | |
| Ablative | -culō | -culā | -culō | -culīs | |||
| Vocative | -cule | -cula | -culum | -culī | -culae | -cula | |
Derived terms
- -unculus (rebracketing)
References
- ^ Derivation of Adjectives: Nominal Adjectives in Meagan Ayer, Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges. Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Dickinson College Commentaries, 2014.
- ^ "The Formation of Latin Diminutives of Nouns and Adjectives," Ian Andreas Miller, ResearchGate, Jan 2012