Where does diminution collide?

In music, diminution is the restatement of a melodic theme in shorter note values than before, so the same tune is heard faster, and it also names the older performing practice of dividing one long written note into a run of quicker ornamental notes. Horsley's 1963 The Diminutions in Composition and Theory of Composition traced how Renaissance and Baroque players filled sustained notes with these divisions and how the habit fed into written counterpoint. The word further labels a diminished interval, one narrowed by a half step from a minor or perfect interval. Here diminution is a manipulation of musical time and pitch, not a legal measure of lost worth or a word ending that marks smallness.[1]

Unit

A theme rewritten in proportionally shorter note values, or a long note split into faster ones

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Read from the score as the ratio of the new note values to the original, or heard as the increased speed of the restated theme

In law, diminution in value is a standard way to measure money damages: the loss is set at how much a wrong or a defect has lowered the market value of the property or the promised performance, rather than at what it would cost to put the fault right. The American Law Institute's 1981 Restatement (Second) of Contracts, section 348, states this measure and lets a court use it in place of the cost of repair when that cost would be clearly out of proportion to the worth actually lost. A separate phrase, diminution of the record, names a party's claim that an appeal record is incomplete. Here diminution is a shortfall in worth reckoned in money, not a speeding-up of a musical theme or a word ending that signals smallness.[4][2]

Unit

The reduction in a thing's market value caused by a wrong, stated in money

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed as the gap between the market value with the defect or injury and the market value without it, usually through valuation or appraisal evidence

In linguistics, diminution is the word-forming process that produces a diminutive, a word shaped to express small size or affection, usually by adding an affix such as English -let and -ie, Spanish -ito, or Italian -ino. Jurafsky's 1996 Universal Tendencies in the Semantics of the Diminutive mapped how these forms spread across languages from a core meaning of 'child' or 'small' to further meanings of affection, approximation, and contempt. The referent is a change made to a word's form and meaning, marked by an affix and studied across languages. It has nothing to do with speeding up a musical theme or measuring lost market value in a lawsuit.[3]

Unit

A word marked by a diminutive affix to signal smallness or endearment

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Identified by the diminutive affix and its meaning, and compared across languages by the affixes each uses and the meanings they carry