Questão 82

Mexicans are famous $\in$ the Spanish-speaking world for their extensive use of the diminutive. While $\in$ most Spanish-speaking countries the addition of the diminutive ‘ita’ to an adverb like ahora (meaning ‘now’) would strengthen it to indicate immediacy (i.e. ‘\right now’), this is not the case $\in M$exico. Dr Company explained that Mexicans instead use the diminutive form to break down the   between the speaker and the listener and lessen formality. In this case of ‘ahorita’, the addition of the diminutive reduces urgency rather than increasing it – a difference that can be extremely confusing for foreigners.

(Disponível: . Adaptado. Acesso: 26 de julho de 2017.)

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