In
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive''
first-person pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not co ...
s and
verb
A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
al morphology, also called ''inclusive "
we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the
addressee
Addressee may refer to:
* Someone to whom mail or similar things are addressed or sent
* Interlocutor (linguistics), a person to whom a conversation or dialogue is addressed
See also
* Address (disambiguation)
* Addressee honorific, linguistic ...
(that is, one of the words for "we" means "you and I and possibly others"), while exclusive "we" specifically excludes the addressee (that is, another word for "we" means "he/she/they and I, but not you"), regardless of who else may be involved. While imagining that this sort of distinction could be made in other persons (particularly the second) is straightforward, in fact the existence of second-person clusivity (you vs. you and them) in natural languages is controversial and not well attested.
While clusivity is not a feature of standard English language, it is found in many languages around the world.
The first published description of the inclusive-exclusive distinction by a European linguist was in a description of
languages of Peru
Peru has many languages in use. One of its official languages, Peruvian Spanish, Spanish, has been in the country since it began being taught in the time of José Pardo y Barreda, José Pardo instead of the country's Native languages, especiall ...
in 1560 by
Domingo de Santo Tomás in his ''Grammatica o arte de la lengua general de los indios de los Reynos del Perú'', published in
Valladolid
Valladolid () is a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and de facto capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the province o ...
, Spain.
Schematic paradigm
![Inclusive-exclusive](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Inclusive-exclusive.jpg)
Clusivity paradigms may be summarized as a two-by-two grid:
Morphology
In some languages, the three first-person pronouns appear to be unrelated. That is the case for
Chechen, which has singular ''so/со,'' exclusive ''txo/тхо,'' and inclusive ''vay/вай''. In others, however, all three are related, as in
Tok Pisin
Tok Pisin (,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh ; Tok Pisin ), often referred to by English speakers as "New Guinea Pidgin" or simply Pidgin, is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an ...
, an
English creole
An English-based creole language (often shortened to English creole) is a creole language for which English was the ''lexifier'', meaning that at the time of its formation the vocabulary of English served as the basis for the majority of the creo ...
spoken in
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
, which has singular ''mi,'' exclusive ''mi-pela'', and inclusive ''yu-mi'' (a compound of ''mi'' with ''yu'' "you") or ''yu-mi-pela''. However, when only one of the plural pronouns is related to the singular, that may be the case for either one. In some dialects of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...
, for example, inclusive or exclusive 我們/我们 ''wǒmen'' is the plural form of singular ''wǒ'' "I", and inclusive 咱們/咱们 ''zánmen'' is a separate root. However, in
Hadza, the inclusive, ''’one-be’e'', is the plural of the singular ''’ono'' (''’one-'') "I", and the exclusive, ''’oo-be’e'', is a separate root.
It is not uncommon for two separate words for "I" to pluralize into derived words, which have a clusivity distinction. For example, in
Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam.
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Overse ...
, the familiar word for "I" (''ta'') pluralizes to inclusive we (''chúng ta''), and the formal or cold word for "I" (''tôi'') pluralizes into exclusive we (''chúng tôi''). In
Samoan, the singular form of the exclusive is the regular word for "I", and the singular form of the inclusive may also occur on its own and then also means "I" but with a connotation of appealing or asking for indulgence.
In the
Kunama language of
Eritrea
Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...
, the first-person inclusive and exclusive distinction is marked on
dual and plural forms of verbs, independent pronouns, and possessive pronouns.
Distinction in verbs
Where verbs are inflected for
person
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
, as in the native languages of Australia and in many Native American languages, the inclusive-exclusive distinction can be made there as well. For example, in
Passamaquoddy
The Passamaquoddy ( Maliseet-Passamaquoddy: ''Peskotomuhkati'') are a Native American/First Nations people who live in northeastern North America. Their traditional homeland, Peskotomuhkatik'','' straddles the Canadian province of New Brunswick ...
, "I/we have it" is expressed
:Singular ''n-tíhin'' (first person prefix ''n-)''
:Exclusive ''n-tíhin-èn'' (first person ''n-'' + plural suffix ''-èn)''
:Inclusive ''k-tíhin-èn'' (inclusive prefix ''k-'' + plural ''-èn)''
In Tamil, on the other hand, the two different pronouns have the same agreement in the verb.
First-person clusivity
First-person clusivity is a common feature among
Dravidian,
Kartvelian Kartvelian may refer to:
* Anything coming from or related to Georgia (country)
* Kartvelian languages
* Kartvelian alphabet, see Georgian alphabet
* Kartvelian studies
* Georgians
{{disambig
Language and nationality disambiguation pages ...
, and
Caucasian
Caucasian may refer to:
Anthropology
*Anything from the Caucasus region
**
**
** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus region
*
*
*
Languages
* Northwest Caucasian l ...
languages,
Australian
Australian(s) may refer to:
Australia
* Australia, a country
* Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia
** European Australians
** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists
** Aboriginal Au ...
and
Austronesian languages, and is also found in languages of
eastern, southern, and southwestern Asia,
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
, and in some
creole language
A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. ...
s. Some
African languages
The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families:
* Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages (includes Bantu and non-Bantu, and possibly Mande and others) are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and Southern A ...
also make the distinction, such as the
Fula language
Fula ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani or Fulah (, , ; Adlam: , , ), is a Senegambian language spoken by around 30 million people as a set of various dialects in a continuum that stre ...
. No European language outside the
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...
makes this distinction grammatically, but some constructions may be
semantically
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
inclusive or exclusive.
Singular inclusive forms
Several
Polynesian languages
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austron ...
, such as
Samoan and
Tongan, have clusivity with overt
dual and plural suffixes in their pronouns. The lack of a suffix indicates the singular. The exclusive form is used in the singular as the normal word for "I", but the inclusive also occurs in the singular. The distinction is one of
discourse
Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. ...
: the singular inclusive has been described as the "modesty I" in Tongan. It is often rendered in English as ''one'', but in Samoan, its use has been described as indicating emotional involvement on the part of the speaker.
Second-person clusivity
In theory, clusivity of the second person should be a possible distinction, but its existence is controversial. Some notable linguists, such as
Bernard Comrie
Bernard Sterling Comrie, (; born 23 May 1947) is a British-born linguist. Comrie is a specialist in linguistic typology, linguistic universals and on Caucasian languages.
Early life and education
Comrie was born in Sunderland, England on 23 ...
, have attested that the distinction is extant in spoken natural languages, while others, such as
John Henderson, maintain that the human brain does not have the capacity to make a clusivity distinction in the second person. Many other linguists take the more neutral position that it could exist but is nonetheless not currently attested.
Clusivity in the second person is conceptually simple but nonetheless if it exists is extremely rare, unlike clusivity in the first. Hypothetical second-person clusivity would be the distinction between "you and you (and you and you ... all present)" and "you and someone else whom I am not addressing currently." These are often referred to in the literature as "2+2" and "2+3", respectively (the numbers referring to second and third person as appropriate). Horst J. Simon provides a deep analysis of second-person clusivity in his 2005 article.
He concludes that oft-repeated rumors regarding the existence of second-person clusivity—or indeed, any
3pronoun feature beyond simple exclusive we – are ill-founded, and based on erroneous analysis of the data.
Distribution of the clusivity distinction
The inclusive–exclusive distinction occurs nearly universally among the
Austronesian languages and the languages of northern
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, but rarely in the nearby
Papuan languages
The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non-Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogra ...
. (
Tok Pisin
Tok Pisin (,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh ; Tok Pisin ), often referred to by English speakers as "New Guinea Pidgin" or simply Pidgin, is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an ...
, an English-Melanesian
creole, generally has the inclusive–exclusive distinction, but this varies with the speaker's language background.) It is widespread in India, featuring in the
Dravidian and
Munda languages
The Munda languages are a group of closely related languages spoken by about nine million people in India and Bangladesh. Historically, they have been called the Kolarian languages. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language famil ...
, as well as in several
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
of India such as
Oriya,
Marathi
Marathi may refer to:
*Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India
*Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people
*Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece
See also
*
* ...
,
Rajasthani
Rajasthani may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Rajasthan, a state of India
* Rajasthani languages, a group of languages spoken there
* Rajasthani people, the native inhabitants of the region
* Rajasthani architecture
* Rajasthani art ...
,
Punjabi,
Sindhi, and
Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India
* Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat
* Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them
* Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...
(which either borrowed it from Dravidian or retained it as a substratum while Dravidian was displaced). It can also be found in the languages of eastern
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
, such as
Tungusic, as well as northern
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...
. In
indigenous languages of the Americas
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
, it is found in about half the languages, with no clear geographic or genealogical pattern. It is also found in a few
languages of the Caucasus
The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
Linguistic comparison allows th ...
and
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...
, such as
Fulani
The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people ( ff, Fulɓe, ; french: Peul, links=no; ha, Fulani or Hilani; pt, Fula, links=no; wo, Pël; bm, Fulaw) are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. ...
, and
Khoekhoe
Khoekhoen (singular Khoekhoe) (or Khoikhoi in the former orthography; formerly also '' Hottentots''"Hottentot, n. and adj." ''OED Online'', Oxford University Press, March 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/88829. Accessed 13 May 2018. Citing G. S. ...
.
[http://wals.info/chapter/40 ]World Atlas of Language Structures
The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-ROM i ...
40: Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection
It is, of course, possible in any language to express the idea of clusivity semantically, and many languages provide common forms that clarify the ambiguity of their first person pronoun (English "the rest of us", Italian ''noialtri''). A language with a true clusivity distinction, however, does not provide a first-person plural with ''indefinite'' clusivity in which the clusivity of the pronoun is ambiguous; rather, speakers are forced to specify by the choice of pronoun or inflection, whether they are including the addressee or not. That rules out most European languages, for example. Clusivity is nonetheless a very common language feature overall. Some languages with more than one plural number make the clusivity distinction only in, for example, the dual but not in the greater plural, but other languages make it in all numbers. In the table below, the plural forms are the ones preferentially listed.
References
Further reading
* Jim Chen
First Person Plural(analyzing the significance of inclusive and exclusive we in
constitutional interpretation
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these princip ...
)
*
* Filimonova, Elena (eds). (2005). ''Clusivity: Typological and case studies of the inclusive-exclusive distinction.'' Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. .
* Kibort, Anna. "Person." Grammatical Features. 7 January 2008
Retrieved on 16 March 2020.
{{lexical categories, state=collapsed
Personal pronouns
Grammatical conjugation
Grammatical categories
pl:Osoba (językoznawstwo)#Inkluzywność i ekskluzywność 1. osoby l. mn.