Diminutives again

[marta-mb.livejournal.com]

It occurred to me that diminutives in modern Russian may be used to give a tincture of definiteness or add the meaning of the limited amount to the respective noun. For example you can say:
Дай мне хлебушка и маслица.
This means 'Give me bread [+diminutive] and butter [+diminutive]'
Why not interpret this as 'Give me SOME bread and SOME butther', i.e. not bread in general, but some small amount. The last idea is expressed by the diminutive suffix.
What are your views on this?

Comments

[wire-shock.livejournal.com]

By the way, the phrase that marta_mb was asking about is not a normal instance of contemporary Russian usage. It's either from a fairy tale or made up to look like it.

[zhp.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say it's from a fairy tale or something like that. There are people who actually tals like that. There was a person working at my University's cafeteria whose every phrase was full of diminutives: - Мне, пожалуйста, пюре и сосиску. - Пюрешечку и сосисочку? Возьмите. Вот вам вилочка, ножичек. А три рублика не посмотрите?, etc. I personally find it nauseating, but there are people who are OK with it.

[wire-shock.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I too find it nauseating :-)
The fairy tale context is probably the only one where it's not so.