inclusive/exclusive

shokooh Ingham shokoohbanou at yahoo.co.uk
Tue Dec 13 21:01:32 UTC 2005


Yes In Cree inclusive includes the addressee
kimiicinaw 'we (including you) eat', and nimiicinaan
'we not including you eat' is exclusive as in Wolfart
in the Handbook p 400.  This makes sense, but the
terminology does not seem to make sense in Lakota if
unyanpi 'we (exclusive) go' is exclusive, what would
it exclude?  It does not exclude 3rd persons as it can
mean "I, you and others".  Therefore to call unye 'we
inclusive go' seems strange.  True it includes 2nd
person, but so does the so called 'exclusive'.  Do you
think that Siouanists have just copied Algonquianists?

I also find the use of dual for unye "I and you go'
strange'. If we call it 'dual' because two human
beings are involved, shouldn't wanblake 'I see you'
also be dual, also wanyanke 'he sees him' and
wanmayalake 'you see me' also be duals?  All of these
involve two participants.  In other languages such as
Arabic a dula is where you have two 3rd persons like
humaa 'they two' or two 2nd persons as in antumaa 'you
two'.  'I and you' sommehow does not seem to be a dual
in the same sense.  I'm sure I've seen arguments
against this use of dual somewhere, but can't remember
where.  Oh well, I suppose the usage can be stretched
a bit
Yours
Bruce
Sti--- David Costa <pankihtamwa at earthlink.net> wrote:

> I only just read this. I think you have had it
> backwards. In my experience
> in Algonquian, first person plural exclusive means
> excluding the addressee,
> and inclusive means including the addressee. In
> other words, 'inclusive' is
> 1st person + 2nd person (with 3rd included
> optionally), while 'exclusive'
> means 1st person + 3rd person, and not the addressee
> (2nd).
> 
> I'd be rather surprised to hear that
> 'exclusive'/'inclusive' were used in
> any other way in grammatical description.
> 
> (Of course, I can't speak to how the Lakota forms
> fit into this.)
> 
> This distinction is extremely clear-cut in
> Algonquian languages; more so
> than in Siouan, from the sound of it. For one thing,
> inclusive verbs take
> the second person prefix, while exclusive verbs take
> the first person
> prefix.
> 
> Dave
> 
> > I have just discovered, after studying Lakota for
> about twelve years that I
> > have been using the terms exclusive and inclusive
> wrongly. I always thought
> > that 'exclusive we' uNkiye meant that the 3rd
> person was excluded and
> > 'inclusive we' uNkiyepi meant that the 3rd person
> could be included. If it is
> > the other way around, does it make sense? If
> uNkiyepi is exclusive, what is it
> > excluding? It does not exclude 2nd person, because
> uNkiyepi could mean 'I, you
> > and a third party'. Possibly there is some other
> rational for this use of the
> > terminology. Does anyone know what it is? It seems
> to make more sense in Cree
> > where nimiicinaan (exclusive we eat) means 'I and
> others excluding you',
> > whereas kimiicinaw (inclusive we eat) means 'I and
> possibly others including
> > you'. I also note that the term dual can be used
> for the uNkiye in Lakota
> > meaning 'you and I'. Does anyone know whether it
> can mean 'more than one of
> > you plus I', in which case it would not really be
> a dual.
> >  We live and learn
> >  Bruce
> >  
> >  
> >
> 



		
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