Arabic-L:LING:Arabic idiom query

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Mon 11 Jan 2010
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1) Subject:Arabic idiom query

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1)
Date: 11 Jan 2010
From:
"Kleanthes K. Grohmann" <kleanthi at ucy.ac.cy>

Subject:Arabic idiom query

Dear Arabic linguists,

With a student of mine, I'm currently looking at an idiom that purportedly exists in Iraqi Arabic, but possibly other varieties of Arabic as well (as some colleagues inform me, it certainly exists in Lebanese Arabic, for which I have some relevant data). In Lebanese Arabic it's: Samiir ʕatˁaa-k/ki/kun ʕimr-o and the idiomatic meaning is ‘X died’ (similarly to the English idiom ‘X kicked the bucket’) and it is literally translated as ‘X gave his life/years to you’ (where in this case, X is Samiir). So far, the second person pronoun is the only one allowed according to our informants: *‘X gave his years to them/to Bill’.

Some questions we have for which we're looking forward to receiving answers are the following:

1) Is there any variant of the pronoun for male/female addresses in the plural form in Iraqi Arabic (or another variety)?

2) Is there any variant of the idiom in any Arabic variety that allows for anything but a second person pronoun there?

3) Can the idiom be used in a context like “John? Oh, he gave his years to you 15 years ago…”, similar to its corresponding idioms in other languages like English and Greek (“John? Oh, he kicked the bucket 15 years ago…”)?

4) In reported speech, if somebody informs me that Bill passed away (‘gave his life to me’), does it eliminate idiomaticity to say ‘Mary just said that Bill gave his years to me/us’?

5) Are there any other idioms in Arabic that involve only the first or second person pronoun and are fixed for that?

It would be great if someone could help us out. Many thanks in advance for your responses!

All the best,

Kleanthes

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End of Arabic-L:  11 Jan 2010