linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (Interlinear gloss, glossed ) 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 part of speech, parts of speech, but so ...

s and

verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...

al morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the addressee, while exclusive "we" specifically excludes the addressee; in other words, two (or more) words that both translate to "we", one meaning "you and I, and possibly someone else", the other meaning "me and some other person or persons, but not you". 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 they) in natural languages is controversial and not well attested. While clusivity is not a feature of the 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, with its official languages being Spanish language, Spanish, Quechuan languages, Quechua and Aymara language, Aymara. Spanish has been in the country since it began being taught in the time of José Pardo y Barre ...

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 pr ...

, Spain.

Schematic paradigm

Clusivity paradigms may be summarized as a two-by-two grid:

Morphology

In some languages, the three first-person pronouns appear to be unrelated roots. That is the case for Chechen, which has singular '' ()'', exclusive '' ()'', and inclusive '' ()''. In others, however, all three are transparently simple compounds, as in

Tok Pisin Tok Pisin ( ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student's Handbook'', Edinburgh ; ), often referred to by English speakers as New Guinea Pidgin or simply Pidgin, is an English-based creole languages, English creole language spoken throughou ...

, an

English creole An English-based creole language (often shortened to English creole) is a creole language for which English language, English was the ''lexifier'', meaning that at the time of its formation the vocabulary of English served as the basis for the ma ...

spoken in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

, 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 ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

, for example, inclusive or exclusive ／ ' is the plural form of singular ' "I", and inclusive ／ ' 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, the familiar word for "I" (') pluralizes to inclusive we ('), and the formal or cold word for "I" (') pluralizes into exclusive we ('). 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, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

, 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 or persons, depending on context) is a being who 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 suc ...

, 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 language, Passamaquoddy: ''Peskotomuhkati'', Plural: ''Peskotomuhkatiyik'') are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American/First Nations in Canada, First Nations people who live in northea ...

, "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, and Caucasian languages, Australian and Austronesian languages, and is also found in languages of eastern, southern, and southwestern Asia,

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

, and in some

creole language A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable form of contact language that develops from the process of different languages simplifying and mixing into a new form (often a pidgin), and then that form expanding and elaborating into a full-fl ...

s. Some Sub-Saharan

African languages The number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated (depending on the delineation of language vs. dialect) at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages (according to SI ...

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 script, Adlam: , , ; Ajami script, Ajami: , , ), is a Senegambian languages, Senegambian language spoken by arou ...

. No European language outside the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

makes this distinction grammatically, but some constructions may be semantically inclusive or exclusive.

Singular inclusive forms

Several Polynesian languages, 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. F ...

: 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. 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 (one or more addressees) 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). Some notable linguists, such as Bernard Comrie, have attested that the distinction is extant in spoken natural languages, while others, such as John Henderson, maintain that a clusivity distinction in the second person is too complex to process. Many other linguists take the more neutral position that it could exist but is nonetheless not currently attested. 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 The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...

and the languages of northern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, but rarely in the nearby

Papuan languages The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply ...

. (

, 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, as well as in several

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

of India such as Odia, Marathi, Rajasthani, Punjabi, Dakhini, and Gujarati (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 ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

, such as Tungusic, as well as northern

. In

indigenous languages of the Americas The Indigenous languages of the Americas are the languages that were used by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas before the arrival of non-Indigenous peoples. Over a thousand of these languages are still used today, while many more are now e ...

, 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 and

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...

, such as Fulani, and Khoekhoe.http://wals.info/chapter/40 World Atlas of Language Structures 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.