| Abstrakt: |
This work explores the phenomenon of disguised praise through the prism of medieval Arabic philology, via the philologists' accounts of cases in which a speaker chooses an apparently negative wording to refer to things perceived as positive, by him and/or by others. The main categories of cases that emerge from rhetorical and grammatical literature are the following three: compliments disguised as curses, taqbīḥ al-ḥasan 'uglifying the beautiful', and ta'kīd al-madḥ bi-mā yušbihu al-ḏamm 'emphasizing the praise by what resembles derogation'. The reason behind such usages may be pragmatic (viz., the universal tendency to use negative expressions to convey strong emotions), anthropological (viz., a variety of human behaviours developed to avert envy and/or 'evil eye'), or stylistic (viz., the authors' attempt at originality). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
