Re: Number
| From: | SMITH,MARCUS ANTHONY <smithma@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, August 5, 2001, 21:02 |
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On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, claudio wrote:
> good day.
> when we see plural as the strict meaning of "this and others additional",
> then the english "we" is acutally an "exclusive we" (which is used as incl we as connotation)
> AND the inclusive we can be logically split up into a singular-incl.-we and a plural-incl.-we
First person plural is certainly "I + others". The inclusive vs. exclusive
distinction determines whether the addressee is included in "others" or
not. The other pronouns can be purely "plural" meaning "more than one of".
The meaning "X + others" is often called the associative plural. Some
languages, such as Hungarian, distinguish "normal" plurals from
associative plurals.
Janos 'John'
Janos-ok 'John-PL' (more than one person called John)
Janos-ek 'John-Assoc' (John and others with him)
(Data from Corbett 2001)
Other languages with such systems are Central Pomo and Yup'ik.
Marcus
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