Inclusive (was Re: Pedagogical Query)

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Mon Oct 2 23:32:52 UTC 2000


On Tue, 3 Oct 2000, Wablenica wrote:
> I wonder is there a more adequate term for "we inclusive"/"dual" form of the
> Siouan verb?

> It seem to me that uN-thi'  "I & thou dwell" is not real dual because there
> are NO (and never were) 2d p. dual and 3d. p. dual forms.
> Strictly speaking, the form uN-thi' covers only a subset of the meanings of
> "we inclusive" because uN-thi' pi means both "we exclusive" and "we
> inclusive plural" - "I & thou & he" / "I & y'all"
>
> Perhaps the term that I saw in Algonquinist linguistics is proper - "12p" ?
> If so, the paradigm of a stative verb is compactly and symmetrically
> described by a table with 4 rows and 2 columns:
>
> 1p sing.           } 1p plur
> 12p                  }
> 2p sing.            2p pl.
> 3p sing.            3p pl.
>
> (Yet I know that David is against this layout)
> Best wishes, Constantine.

Well, I prefer inclusive to dual, though either is an approximation.  I
abbreviate it 12(+/-p).  As far as I know, Winnebago (Hochank)  is the
only Siouan language in which this works perfectly, however, as it appears
that there the augment (pluralizer) can be used with both the first person
(exclusive) and inclusive pronominals.  Both occur without it, too.  In
Dakotan the first person can't be augmented with third persons
(pluralized) and the plural of the inclusive serves instead in this
capacity.  In OP, it seems that unaugmented inclusives do occur, but
fairly rarely, perhaps only with certain kinds of I/you pairs.  Other
Siouan languages always augment the inclusive and use it in the sense of a
first person plural.  Some have special augments for the inclusive.
Biloxi has first person singular forms that seem to derive from the
inclusive, which might be thought as a further leveling in favor of a
standard singular/plural scheme.

Another unique feature of the Winnebago inclusive is that you can't
combine it with second person forms in transitive verbs.  It co-occurs
only with third persons.  Inability to co-occur with first persons is
standard across the family.



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