Winnebago Inclusive/Exclusive and Minimal/Augmented Pronominals

Thu Dec 15 08:21:02 UTC 2005

Dear Siouanists,

I would like to add some clarifications with regard to the inclusive/ 
exclusive distinction in Hocank (Winnebago) from my experience. First of 
all, Lipkind is basically right with his analysis of forms. There is a 
1A.DU.INCL hiN- meaning 'you and I'. If this form is pluralized with the 
suffix -wi, it is a 1A.PL.INCL. The 1SG ha- becomes a 1A.PL.EXCL with 
the plural marker -wi. Actually, there is no real dual form except the 
'you and me' form hiN-. I would fully agree with John that we have a 
very similar pattern in Hocank to the ones summarized below in terms of 
minimal/augmented pronouns. There is not much to add to Johns 
presentation of the data form Austronesian and Australian languages. 
Perhaps, if I remeber correctly, there are also other morphosyntactic 
properties beside the structure of the paradigm which indicate that the 
1+2 form is treated as singular in Rembarrnga, namely agreement, but I 
might be wrong.

On the other hand, Hocank has the same distinction also in the undergoer 
series of pronominal affixes showing exactly the same pattern. The 
1U.DU.INCL is waNanNgá- (certainly a historically recent addition to the 
pronominal partadigm) which can be pluralized with -wi resulting in a 
1U.PL.INCL form. Interestingly, the 1U.SG form hiN- forms a 1U.PL.EXCL 
with -wi. (Note that 1U.SG hiN- and 1A.DU.INCL hiN- are homophonous, but 
they are distinct with regard to the morphological slot of the verb 
where they appear).  So the system looks like  the following :

Actor
1SG               ha-
1PL.EXCL    ha- ... -wi
1DU              hiN-
1DU.INCL   hiN- ....- wi

Undergoer
1SG               hiN-
1PL.INCL     hiN- ... -wi
1DU               waNaNgá-
1PL.INCL      waNaNgá- .... -wi

The interesting thing about the plural marker -wi is that it may 
pluralize all speech act participants, no matter which syntactic/ 
semantic function (actor/ undergoer) they have. In addition, -wi (PL) 
can also pluralize both speech act participants in a transitve clause. 
If there is a first person acting on a second person, -wi may pluralize 
the actor, or the undergoer, or both of them. Disambiguation is a matter 
of the context. In addition, -wi alone may represent the 3PL.SUBJ, but 
these instances are rare in our corpus of texts. The default 3PL.SBJ 
marker is the suffix -ire which has only this function. Historically, 
Hocank -wi seems to me cognate to Lakota -pi, but there is nothing 
similar in Lakota like -ire. If speakers are asked for a verb form with 
a 3PL.SBJ, they give always forms with -ire.

In transitive clauses, we have a combination of the actor and the 
undergoer pronouns. Reflexive configurations are avoided. Instead, the 
reflexive prefix ki- is used. Johns is right to point out that 
configurations such as I->us or you->you are forbidden. John is also 
right in assuming that INCL -> second person combinations are not 
possible. The same combinations with EXCL are, however, allowed.

Let me add a final remark. It is noteworthy that there are Hocank 
speakers who totally gave up the inclusive/ exclusive distinction. They 
continue to use the different forms listed above but with no difference 
in meaning. They are no longer associated with the incl/excl distinction.

Best,
Johannes

Koontz John E schrieb:

>The morphology may be the least interesting thing about Winnebago's
>inclusive and "pluralization" of Winnebago pronominals.  We've seen how it
>works in Dakotan and in several Dhegiha cases, but here's what I make of
>Winnebago, depending mainly on Lipkind.
>
>1) The plural marker =i can co-occur with all four pronominal categories,
>including, definitely the first person (h)a, cognate with Da wa, OP a, IO
>(h)a, etc.
>
>   12   (h)iN- +/- =i  you+I +/- others  (we-incl. du. vs. pl.)
>   1    (h)a-  +/- =i  I     +/- others  (I vs. we-excl. du. or pl.)
>   2    ra-    +/- =i  you   +/- others  (you sg. vs. pl.)
>   3           +/- =i  s/he  +/- others  (3p sg. vs. pl.)
>
>(I'm ignoring the other third person plural marker!)
>
>2) Most Siouan languages eschew transitive forms in which the inclusive
>agent or patient co-occurs with a first person patient or agent.  Thus
>there are no we>me or I>us forms.   Winnebago also seems to eschew
>combinations of the inclusive with a second person.  Thus there are
>(apparently) no we>you or you>us forms.  Anyway, Lipkind didn't seem to
>have any examples of them.
>
>I wish Henning were still on the list!
>
>===
>
>The Winnebago pattern with "plural" is a complete version of the sort of
>system Bob and Rory have been speaking about, in which the "inclusive" or
>"dual" or "inclusive dual" form is one of the primitive "non-plural"
>elements of the system, on a par with the first, second, and third persons
>singular.
>
>In fact, this is what Dixon and other students of southwest Pacific
>languages refer to as a minimal/augmented system.  The minimal terms are
>1, 2, 12, 3 or [+speaker -hearer], [-speaker +hearer], [+speaker +hearer]
>and [-speaker -hearer], though I'm not sure that the feature analysis is
>all that significant an improvement on the numbers.  The augmented terms
>indicate that "others" are added to the minimal reference and appear
>morphologically as the minimal terms plus a plural enclitic at the end of
>the verb.  The plural enclitic is not really a pluralizer per se, but
>rather an augment(er), indicating that others are added, not that
>multiples of the minimal reference are present.
>
>Outside of Winnebago Mississippi Valley strays from this pattern (or fails
>to reach it), by excluding the possibility of pairing the first person
>with the augment and throwing that possibility into the scenarios
>represented by the inclusive plus the augment.  To the extent that the
>inclusive or dual form is eliminated in actual use you get a situation in
>which the unaugmented first person and the augmented (or unagumented)
>inclusive come to pattern like singular and plural first persons. This
>seems to be what has happened in Mandan, where first person singular wa-
>opposes first person plural ruN- (nu-), which may be a reflex of *wuNk-.
>As I recall there is no plural marker (or augment) in the first person in
>Mandan.
>
>Biloxi may take a further step and generalize the inclusive marker to both
>first person contexts, though the first person has so many allomorphs it
>is hard to be sure they all come from *(w)uNk-.  On the other hand Crow
>and Hidatsa seem to lose the inclusive marker and just pluralize the first
>person, except with the Crow stative, which seems to use the independent
>first person plural pronoun with the third person verb.
>
>In the western Pacific the minimal/augmented pattern is fairly widespread.
>It is found in Austronesian, e.g., in the Philippines and New Guinea and
>in Australian.  Apparently minimal/augmented systems are rare in the
>Papuan language family or families.  It appears that minimaal/augmented
>systems have been noticed in Africa, too - not to mention midwestern North
>America.
>
>Examples in the Philippines would be Ilocano or Tagalog:
>
>          Ilocano             Tagalog
>
>       min      aug        min        aug
>12     ta       tayo       kita       tayo
>1      co       mi         ako        kami
>2      mo       yo         ikaw       kayo
>3      na       da         siya       sila
>
>See http://email.eva.mpg.de/~cysouw/pdf/cysouwPHIL.pdf for a summary of
>min/aug behavior in the Phlippines.  I got the Tagalog data from
>http://www.copewithcytokines.de/TAGALOG/cope.cgi?002841.
>
>Incidentally, my the Tagalog reference gave this example:  mahal kita
>(dear/expense + 12) = 'I love you'.  An implicit reciprocal?
>
>It seems to me that in principle an augment system should indicate the
>addition of 1, 2, N, etc., others to the sense of the minimal term, some
>of these possibilities being arbitrarily noted as dual, trial, plural,
>etc., in descriptions that ignore the pattern.  On the other hand a plural
>system should indicate the total number of individuals, 1 (singular), N >
>1 (plural), 2 (dual), etc.
>
>Dixon's example of the Rembarrnga dative pronouns follows the augment
>scheme quite well:
>
>      min    +1               +N
>
>12    yUkkU  ngakorr-bbarrah  ngakorrU
>1     ngUnU  yarr-bbarrah     yarrU
>2     kU     nakor-bbarrah    nakorrU
>3m    nawU   barr-bbarrah     barrU
>3f    ngadU  barr-bbarrah     barrU
>
>(See
>http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/dm/archive/79/Harbour%20Remark%2004.pdf)
>
>I'm using U for barred-u.
>
>Notice that this system uses suppletion, for minimal and non-minimal
>terms, and the formant -bbarrah for "only one more."
>
>However, it appears to me that most of the Austronesian approaches to this
>sort of thing are actually minimal/plural systems.
>
>Example, Tolai
>(see http://amor.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h2816i3x/TokPisinPronouns.pdf)
>
>      sg.        dual    trial   plural
>12               dor     datal   dat
>1     iau        amir    amital  avet
>2     u          amur    amutal  avat
>3     ia         dir     dital   diat
>
>In analyzing these, note ura 'two' and utul 'three', so dor is something
>like Ilocano ta + (u)r(a), datal is something like that plus (u)tal, and
>so on.
>
>It's interesting to see the Tok Pisin take on this, since Tolai is a big
>part of the local substrate of Tok Pisin.
>
>     sg.      dual            trial          plural
>12            yumitupela      yumitripela    yumi      (*yumipela)
>1    mi       mitupela        mitripela      mipela
>2    yu       yutupela        yutripela      yupela
>3    em       (em)tupela      (em)tripela    ol
>
>As I understand it, yumitupela is speaker + 1 x hearer, while yumi is
>speaker, plus 1 x hearer, plus unspecified others.  Presumably the
>unspecified others can be either speakers or hearers or even persons out
>of the scene.  Multiple speakers are presumably comes down to a question
>of solidarity.
>
>I do remember looking at examples of exclusive first person plurals once
>in a grammar of Nguna, a Polynesian Outlier language from the
>Austronesian.  My recollection is that they weren't so much cases of
>people speaking in unison as narrative references reflecting solidarities,
>e.g., things like "They said (to someone), 'We (excl., i.e., not you) will
>...'"
>
>The distinction between augment and pluralizer is moot if augmentation or
>plurality of 1 is indicated by suppletion, and the 12 form indicates
>either 1 x 1p + 1x 2p or that plus additional others.  You end up with a
>system of the type that is traditionally characterized as singular vs.
>plural, with an inclusive vs. exclusive contrast in the first person
>plural region.  But if the augmentation is indicated with a separate
>morpheme and the basic 12 form can only refer to one speaker + one hearer,
>then I think the minimal/augmented analysis looks better.  It seems,
>though, that there may be muddy in between systems, though Dakota and
>Dhegiha are messy in different ways from Austronesian and particularly
>from Tok Pisin.
>
>It appears that inclusive might be the usual term for the basic 12
>pronoun.  I'd be OK with dual if we understand that it's not a number, but
>a person!
>
>
>  
>

-- 
PD Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht
Universität Erfurt - Philosophische Fakultät
Seminar für Sprachwissenschaft
Postfach 90 02 21
D-99105 Erfurt, Deutschland
Tel. 0361/ 737-4202
Fax 0361/ 737-4209
johannes.helmbrecht at uni-erfurt.de
http://www.uni-erfurt.de/sprachwissenschaft/index.htm