French Augmentative
The augmentative is a word that has been modified in some way to convey a greater degree of its basic meaning: the large size, greatness, or greater intensity of something. The opposite of an augmentative is a diminutive.
Unlike in most Romance languages, augmentative endings (suffixes) are very rare in French. Instead, French typically indicates the greater degree of something with adjectives.
For example
- une maison (house) --> une grande maison (big house)
- un homme (man) --> un grand homme (great man)
French also uses some prefixes that could be considered "augmentative prefixes":
- ordinateur (computer) --> superordinateur (supercomputer)
- marché (market) --> supermarché (supermarket), hypermarché (hypermarket)
- humain (human) --> surhumain (superhuman)
