inclusive/exclusive

[David Costa]

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
>  
>  
>