Arabic-L:LING:Polite Plurals summary

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Wed 21 Oct 2009
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1) Subject:Polite Plurals summary

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1)
Date: 21 Oct 2009
From:brustad at AUSTIN.UTEXAS.EDU
Subject:Polite Plurals summary

Colleagues,
About a month ago I wrote asking about the use of polite plurals and  
their grammatical agreement, and I received the following responses.   
Thanks again to all the colleagues who took time to write with  
information.
Best,
Kristen Brustad

Question:   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. Of course, this happens  
regularly in fuSHaa  in formal situations, with plural verb and  
adjective agreement (HaDaraat-kum dhakartum anna ..).    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?



Moroocan Arabic, from Abderrahman Zouhir

the verb should be in the plural.



Example: siyaadtkum f jwaabkum lli rsaltuu lbaariH...qultuu blli



 From Adil Ait Hamd:



To reply to your question, in Morocco, this polite form is used when  
addressing government officials like governors, ministers or the king.  
Sometimes you can hear a low rank employee using this structure to  
address his/her boss. The plural pronoun usually agrees with the verb  
(plural).



  Syria, from Alex Dalati:

The polite plural certainly extends into colloquial Syrian in the  
Damascus dialect; and in my experience the verb is always in the plural.



Iraq, from Lamia Jamal Aldin:

I have heard this polite plurals in spoken Iraqi among the religious  
shia of Najaf and Karbala, you would hear something like: "mawlaana,  
intu giltu kadha wa kadha, w riHtu ilaa...", maybe it is the norm  
spoken for respect in the "Hawza" - the religious school in Najaf.



Yemen, from Kathrin Feitz:

In Yemen the polite plural is used very often in Sanaa region to  
address even ones parents, so you use antu for talking with your  
mother and father and other elder relatives.  They use the plural  
pronoun and verb when addressing respectable or unknown people.



And from Fatma Said:

In San'aani (Yemeni) Arabic we always use the plural to address a  
single person and we do switch to singular now and then; interestingly  
enough we move between the two so plural, singular, plural, singular  
and so on. I don't have any data as yet but definitely when I am in  
San'aa I am aware that it would not be seen as polite to address  
people especially in formal settings in the singular. But when we go  
to Hadramout or other places the singular is enough in everyday  
dealings unless it is official business but even then there are no  
consequences if the plural is not used.





Gulf, from Stephen Franke:
Re..."HaDaraat-kum":  That term is rarely used in SA and adjacent GCC  
countries. My Saudi informants mentioned with aspersion that  
"HaDaraat" is considered a foreign and artificial transplant, also  
imported via the Turks who occupied Hijaz and parts of Najd and the  
Eastern Province.  Based on my field research and regional residence  
several times in Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries, the more-common  
terms of deferential utterances by Saudi, Qataris, and Emiratis tend  
to be variants on the constructions "Taal" + "3mr", viz:  Taal 3mruk =  
ÿ«· ⁄„—fl

While the honorifics of "samookum al-maliki" and "ma3alii al-wazir"  
etc. may be used as parts of formal addresses in written  
correspondence, the utterances based on "Taal 3mruk" seem to carry the  
day in verbal discourse.

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End of Arabic-L:  21 Oct 2009


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