Evaluative formations in Portuguese and Polish : a quantitative study based on José Saramago's novels

The paper aims to analyse and compare the so-called evaluative formations, namely, diminutives and augmentatives, in Portuguese and Polish. Four José Saramago’s novels (Memorial do convento, A jangada de pedra, Todos os nomes, Ensaio sobre a lucidez) and their direct translations into Polish (Baltazar i Blimunda, Kamienna tratwa, Wszystkie imiona, Miasto białych kart) have been selected as research material. Three types of evaluative formations have been excerpted from all texts: synthetic, analytic and mixed ones. The analysis of the material consists in collecting numerical data in tables, defining several variables and elaborating illustrative statistics. Based on this data some conclusions are made: 1) the frequency of use of diminutives is higher in Polish translations than in Portuguese originals, while the frequency of use of augmentatives oscillates between similar values in both languages; 2) in both Portuguese and Polish predominate synthetic diminutives and analytic augmentatives; 3) the frequency of evaluative formations in Portuguese and Polish texts can suggest the translation strategy adopted by the translator: the formal equivalence in case of Wojciech Charchalis and the dynamic equivalence in case of Elżbieta Milewska.