Multi-level representation of diminutives in Russian and English

The article is devoted to the representation of distinctive features of diminutives in Russian and English. The authors argue that diminutiveness in the Russian language is one of the semantic dominants while in the English language diminutiveness is narrower. In Russian there exist more lexical diminutives, while in English the diminutive category functions in pragmatic structures and combinations. The fact can be explained by peculiarities of morphological paradigms in the languages: predominance of analytical way of forming diminutives in English, synthetic way - in Russian.