Agreement Patterns in Khuzestani Arabic

In the course of this paper we analyze the functioning of agreement in the variety of Arabic currently spoken in the Iranian province of Khuzestan. Since Khuzestani Arabic distinguishes gender in the plural forms of the adjective, verb and pronoun, we adopt the theoretical framework first outlined in Bettega (2019) for the analysis of agreement patterns in gender-distinguishing varieties of Arabic. As in other Arabic dialects that preserve a M/F distinction in the plural, in Khuzestani Arabic non-human referents that trigger masculine agreement in the singular attract feminine agreement in the plural. This behavior can be accounted for by postulating the existence of three distinct agreement classes (or controller genders). The occurrence of singular agreement with plural controllers, on the other hand, should be understood in terms of variation in the level of individuation of the referent. In the article, we analyze the effects that several different factors have on agreement, including: the semantics of the controller, quantification, word order, distance between target and controller, and target type. Speaker’s age and the possible interference of typical MSA agreement patterns are also taken into account.