<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>Arabic-L: Wed 16 Sep 2009<br>Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <<a href="mailto:dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu">dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu</a>><br>[To post messages to the list, send them to <a href="mailto:arabic-l@byu.edu">arabic-l@byu.edu</a>]<br>[To unsubscribe, send message from same address you subscribed from to<br><a href="mailto:listserv@byu.edu">listserv@byu.edu</a> with first line reading:<br> unsubscribe arabic-l ]<br><br>-------------------------Directory------------------------------------<br><br>1) Subject:Polite plurals in spoken Arabic query<br><br>-------------------------Messages-----------------------------------<br>1)<br>Date: 16 Sep 2009<br>From: Kristen Brustad <<a href="mailto:brustad@austin.utexas.edu">brustad@austin.utexas.edu</a>><br>Subject:wPolite plurals in spoken Arabic query<br><br><div><div>Dear Colleagues,<div><br></div><div>A colleague of mine in Linguistics is doing a cross-linguistic investigation of "polite plurals"-- the use of the plural pronoun (antum) to a single addressee.</div><div>Of course, this happens regularly in fuSHaa in formal situations, with plural verb and adjective agreement (HaDaraat-kum dhakartum anna ..). </div><div><br></div><div>The question is whether this happens in any spoken dialects of Arabic on a regular basis, and if so, are there ever contexts in which the plural pronoun might have singular verb agreement, something like:</div><div><br></div><div>HaDaraatkum fii jawaabkum illi ba3ath-tum imbaariH .. dhakarta inna</div><div><br></div><div>Please respond to me off-line and i will post a summary to the list.</div><div><a href="mailto:brustad@austin.utexas.edu">brustad@austin.utexas.edu</a></div><div><br></div><div>Many thanks,</div><div><br></div><div>Kristen</div><div><br></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Kristen Brustad, PhD</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Associate Chair and Graduate Studies Advisor</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Department of Middle Eastern Studies</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">University of Texas at Austin</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">WMB 6.140</div><div><br></div></div></span></div></div></div><div>--------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>End of Arabic-L: 16 Sep 2009</div></div></body></html>