hypocoristic (n.)

A term used in LINGUISTICS for a pet name (e.g. Harry for Harold). Hypocoristics and similar phenomena have attracted special attention in some models of NON-LINEAR PHONOLOGY (notably, PROSODIC MORPHOLOGY), where they have been used as an illustration of TEMPLATE analysis and related procedures. One approach on these lines argues that a hypocoristic is the result of mapping a name onto a minimal word template.