inclusive/exclusive

Carolyn Quintero cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net
Tue Dec 13 23:31:18 UTC 2005


Hi David,  

Can you tell us the plural form of 
unyin kte heci 'let's go', said to one person.  

In Osage, the dual can be either 'you and I' or 'he and I' excluding you.  I
had several sentences such as 'John and I are fixing up the house' with
dual, not plural, verb ending.

Thanks,
Carolyn

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu] On Behalf Of David Costa
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 2:30 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: inclusive/exclusive

This sounds to me like there's no reason to use the term 'exclusive'; that
/unye/ is a sort of 'dual inclusive', and /unyanpi/ is just generic 'first
person plural'. An 'other' category.

So unless I'm missing something, the terminology Algonquianists use isn't
really appropriate here.

Dave Costa



> The point is that unyanpi is neither exclusive nor inclusive -- it is
> 'I and others'.  On the other hand, unye 'you and I went' could only be
> used to remind someone of something the two of you had done at some point;
> it has to be limited to two people, and only the speaker and a single
> addressee are available.  It's most common as an imperative -- unyin
> kte heci 'let's go', said to one person.
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu



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