Associative plurals in Iranian Languages

An Associative plural refers to a construction where a nominal along with a (synthetic or analytic) marker refers to a human referent and other people associated to him/her. Unlike ordinary plurals, the set formed by associated plurals is comprised of some heterogeneous members. The aim of this article is to identify and describe associated plural constructions employed in selected Western Iranian languages. Furthermore, the sources from which the associative markers originate are also indicated. The bulk of the data analyzed in this study come from the spoken varieties while the grammaticalized associative plurals usually belong to the casual and informal speech. The findings of this study indicate that six different strategies are used to express associate plurals in Iranian languages. In some languages two complementary strategies are used with different subset of nominals (proper nouns, or kin terms) in the same language. Still in some others, the usage of the alternative strategies demonstrates some sociolinguistic implications not touched upon in similar studies on associative plurals.