query: portmanteau pronouns

[davidgil]

Tom,

Thanks for your comment ...

> In Indonesian and most regional languages in Nusantara the same
> word, "kita", traslated as "we", includes both the speaker and
> the listener(s).

Yes, indeed, and the facts are even more complicated, since in different
dialects of Malay and Indonesian (and often even within the same
dialect) "kita" can mean "I", "we (incl)", "we (excl)", "you", or simply
an impersonal "one".  The semantic connection to Tagalog "kita" is
obvious; however, in no Malay/Indonesian dialect that I am aware of can
"kita" refer simultaneously to two distinct arguments.  That is to say,
a sentence such as

(1) Tembak kita

can in different dialects mean all kinds of different things, including

(a) I shot (somebody)
(b) We shot (somebody)
(c) You shot (somebody)

(d) (Somebody) shot me
(e) (Somebody) shot us
(f) (Somebody) shot you

etc., but in no dialect of Malay / Indonesian that I'm familiar with can
it mean

(g) I shot you

Which is the only possible meaning of the Tagalog sentence

(2) Binaril kita

To reiterate, the crucial -- and to the best of my knowledge exceedingly
rare -- property of Tagalog "kita" is not that it encodes speaker and
hearer together (English "we" does that), but rather that it lumps
together agent and patient.  This is what I would very much like to see
other examples of.

David


--
David Gil

Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
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