ROMANIAN GASTRONOMIC DIMINUTIVES

This article examines words formed with the help of diminutive suffixes - diminutives that can be classified within the lexical-semantic field “Food. Romanian Cuisine”. The study material included Sanda Marin's cookbook (the cookbook that could be found in almost every Romanian home in the last century) and Radu Roman's book about Romanian gastronomy (the author collected recipes from various regions of Romania), as well as the menus of restaurants of traditional Romanian cuisine. The purpose of this article is to study the peculiarities of the formation, semantics and pragmatics of gastronomic diminutives. Lexicalised diminutives - stylistically neutral lexical units formed with the help of diminutive suffixes - are examined. These words, which have no diminutive meaning, are grouped into several lexical-semantic fields: cutlery, dishes, beverages, products, spices, vegetables. Based on the analysis of the linguistic material, we identified two groups of gastronomic diminutives: lexicalised diminutives and diminutives with additional connotations. Gastronomic diminutives are often used in colloquial speech. To illustrate this tendency, the article includes excerpts from essays of contemporary writers, which reflect the authors' opinion of the usage and popularity of these word forms.