In
linguisticsLinguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, clusivity is a distinction between inclusive and exclusive
first-personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
pronounIn linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s and verbal morphology, also called inclusive "we" and exclusive "we". Inclusive "we" specifically includes the
addresseeIn linguistics, an addressee is an intended direct recipient of the speaker's communication. A listener is either an addressee or a bystander.Second-person pronouns refer to an addressee or a group including an addressee...
(that is, one of the words for "we" means "you and I"), while exclusive "we" specifically excludes the addressee (that is, another word for "we" means "he/she 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 in natural languages is controversial and not well attested.
First person clusivity is a common feature among Australian and
Austronesian languagesThe Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
, and is also found in eastern, southern, and southwestern Asia, America, and in some creole languages. Some African languages also make this distinction, such as
FulfuldeThe Fula or Fulani language is a language of West Africa. It is spoken as a first language by the and related groups from Senegambia and Guinea to Cameroon and Sudan...
(Fula). No European language outside the
CaucasusThe Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
makes this distinction grammatically, but some constructions may be
semanticallySemantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
inclusive or exclusive.
Schematic paradigm
Clusivity paradigms may be summarized as a two-by-two grid:
| | | Includes the addressee? |
| Yes | No |
Includes
the speaker? |
Yes |
Inclusive we |
Exclusive we |
| No |
2nd person |
3rd person |
Morphology
In some languages, the three first-person pronouns appear to be unrelated. This is the case for
ChechenThe Chechen language is spoken by more than 1.5 million people, mostly in Chechnya and by Chechen people elsewhere. It is a member of the Northeast Caucasian languages.-Classification:...
, which has singular so, exclusive txo, and inclusive vai. In others, all three are related, as in
Tok PisinTok Pisin is a creole spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an official language of Papua New Guinea and the most widely used language in that country...
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, it may be either one. In Mandarin Chinese, for example, inclusive or exclusive wǒmen is the plural form of singular wǒ "I", while inclusive zánmen is a separate root. However, in
HadzaHadza is a language isolate spoken by fewer than a thousand Hadza people along the shores of Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, the last full-time hunter-gatherers in Africa. Despite the small number of speakers, language use is vigorous, with most children learning it...
it is the inclusive, ’one-be’e, which is the plural of the singular ’ono (’one-) "I", while the exclusive ’oo-be’e is a separate root.
It is not uncommon for two separate words for "I" to pluralize into derived forms having a clusivity distinction. For example, in
VietnameseVietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
the familiar word for "I" pluralizes to inclusive we and the polite word for "I" pluralizes into exclusive we. In
SamoanSamoan Samoan Samoan (Gagana Sāmoa, is the language of the Samoan Islands, comprising the independent country of Samoa and the United States territory of American Samoa. It is an official language—alongside English—in both jurisdictions. Samoan, a Polynesian language, is the first language for most...
, the singular form of the exclusive pronoun is the regular word for "I", while the singular form of the inclusive pronoun may also occur on its own, in which case it also means "I", but with a connotation of appealing or asking for indulgence.
Distinction in verbs
Where verbs are inflected for
personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
, as in Australia and much of America, the inclusive-exclusive distinction can be made there as well. For example, in
PassamaquoddyMalecite–Passamaquoddy is an endangered Algonquian language spoken by the Maliseet and Passamaquoddy peoples along both sides of the border between Maine in the United States and New Brunswick, Canada. The language consists of two major dialects: Malecite, which is mainly spoken in New...
"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 on the verb.
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 ComrieBernard Comrie is a British-born linguist. Comrie is a specialist in linguistic typology and linguistic universals, and on Caucasian languages....
, 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 [+3] pronoun 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 is nearly universal among the
Austronesian languagesThe Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
and the languages of northern
AustraliaThe Australian Aboriginal languages comprise several language families and isolates native to the Australian Aborigines of Australia and a few nearby islands, but by convention excluding the languages of Tasmania and the Torres Strait Islanders...
, but rare in the
Papuan languagesThe Papuan languages are those languages of the western Pacific which are neither Austronesian nor Australian. The term does not presuppose a genetic relationship. The concept of Papuan peoples as distinct from Melanesians was first suggested and named by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1892.-The...
in between. (
Tok PisinTok Pisin is a creole spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an official language of Papua New Guinea and the most widely used language in that country...
, an English-Melanesian
pidginA pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
, generally has the inclusive-exclusive distinction, but this varies with the speaker's language background.) It is widespread in India (among the
DravidianThe Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
and
Munda languages-Anderson :Gregory Anderson's 1999 proposal is as follows. Individual languages are highlighted in italics.*North Munda **Korku**Kherwarian***Santhali***Mundari*South Munda **Kharia–Juang***Juang***Kharia...
, as well as in the
Indo-European languagesThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
of
MarathiMarathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
,
RajasthaniRajasthani Rajasthani Rajasthani (Devanagari: , Perso-Arabic: is a language of the Indo-Aryan languages family. It is spoken by 50 million people in Rajasthan and other states of India and in some areas of Pakistan. The number of speakers may be up to 80 million worldwide...
, and
GujaratiGujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...
), and the languages of eastern
SiberiaSiberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, such as Evenki. In
AmericaIndigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...
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 AfricaThere are over 2100 and by some counts over 3000 languages spoken natively in Africa in several major language families:*Afro-Asiatic spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel...
, such as
FulaniThe Fula or Fulani language is a language of West Africa. It is spoken as a first language by the and related groups from Senegambia and Guinea to Cameroon and Sudan...
and
NamaThe Khoekhoe language, or Khoekhoegowab, also known by the ethnic term Nàmá and previously the now-discouraged term Hottentot, is the most widespread of the Khoisan languages. It belongs to the Khoe language family, and is spoken in Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa by three ethnic groups, the...
.
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 (e.g. English the rest of us or Italian noialtri). A language with a true clusivity distinction, however, does not provide a first person plural with indefinite clusivity, i.e. where the clusivity of the pronoun is ambiguous—rather, the speaker is forced to specify by choice of pronoun or inflection whether he is including the addressee or not. This rules out most European languages, for example. Clusivity is nonetheless a very common language feature overall. Some languages with more than one plural number will make the clusivity distinction only in, for example, the dual, but not in the greater plural. Others will make it in all numbers. In the table below, the plural forms are the ones preferentially listed.
Examples of the clusivity distinction in specific languages
| Language |
Inclusive form |
Exclusive form |
Singular related to |
Notes |
AinuAinu is one of the Ainu languages, spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō....
|
a-/an- |
ci- |
?? |
|
| Aymara Aymara is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over three million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia...
|
jiwasa |
naya |
Exclusive |
The derived form jiwasanaka of the inclusive refers to at least 3 people. |
| Bislama |
yumi |
mifala |
Exclusive |
The inclusive form is derived from the second person pronoun and the first person pronoun. There are also dual and trial forms. |
| Cebuano Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya , is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people mostly in the Central Visayas. It is the most widely spoken of the languages within the so-named Bisayan subgroup and is closely related to other Filipino...
|
kita |
kami |
?? |
Short forms are ta (incl.) and mi (excl.) |
| Chechen The Chechen language is spoken by more than 1.5 million people, mostly in Chechnya and by Chechen people elsewhere. It is a member of the Northeast Caucasian languages.-Classification:...
|
vai |
txo |
Neither |
|
| Dagur |
baa |
biede |
?? |
|
| Evenki |
mit |
bū |
?? |
|
| Guaraní Guaraní, specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guaraní , is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí–Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and half of...
|
ñandé |
oré |
Inclusive |
|
GujaratiGujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...
|
આપણે /aˑpəɳeˑ/ |
અમે /əmeˑ/ |
?? |
|
| Hawaiian The Hawaiian language is a Polynesian language that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language of the state of Hawaii...
|
kāua (dual); kākou (plural) |
māua (dual); mākou (plural) |
|
|
IlokanoIlokano or Ilocano is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines....
|
datayó, sitayó |
dakamí, sikamí |
?? |
The dual inclusives datá and sitá are widely used. |
KannadaKannada or , is a language spoken in India predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas and number roughly 50 million, is one of the 30 most spoken languages in the world...
|
ನಮ್ಮ (namma) |
ನಂಗಳ (namgaLa) |
?? |
The exclusive form is no longer used in most dialects. Kannada is the only Dravidian language to have lost its clusivity distinction. |
KapampanganThe Pampangan language, or Kapampangan , is one of the major languages of the Philippines. It is the language spoken in the province of Pampanga, the southern half of the province of Tarlac and the northern portion of the province of Bataan. Kapampangan is also understood in some barangays of...
|
ikatamu |
ikami |
?? |
The dual inclusive ikata is widely used. |
| Kriol Kriol is an Australian creole language that developed initially in the region of Sydney and Newcastle in New South Wales in the early days of White colonisation, and then moved west and north with White and Black stockmen and others...
|
yunmi |
melabat |
Exclusive |
The inclusive form is derived from the second person pronoun and the first person pronoun. The exclusive form is derived from the first person sing. and the third person plural forms. There is significant dialectal and diachronic variation in the exclusive form. |
| Lakota Lakota is a Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes. While generally taught and considered by speakers as a separate language, Lakota is mutually understandable with the other two languages , and is considered by most linguists one of the three major varieties of the Sioux...
|
uŋ(k)- |
uŋ(k)- ... -pi |
Neither |
The inclusive form has dual number. By adding the suffix "-pi" it takes the plural number. In the plural form no clusivity distinction is made. |
| Malagasy Malagasy is the national language of Madagascar, a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.-History:...
|
isika |
izahay |
– |
|
| Malay Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
(includes IndonesianIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
) |
kita |
kami |
Neither |
The exclusive form is hardly used in colloquial informal modern Indonesian, therefore kita is very often used both to indicate both inclusive and exclusive first person. However in formal Indonesian (both spoken and written), the distinction is clear and practiced although not strictly obliged. Kami is absolutely exclusive whereas kita can generally mean both inclusive and exclusive we (although the right linguistic function is only to indicate inclusive we). |
MalayalamMalayalam , is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is spoken by 35.9 million people...
|
നമ്മള് (nammaḷ) |
ഞങ്ങള് (ñaṅṅaḷ) |
Exclusive |
|
| Mandarin |
咱們 (zánmen) |
我們 (wǒmen) |
Exclusive |
The distinction is maintained rigidly only in northern dialects, notably Beijing dialect. Most speakers use only 我們. |
MarathiMarathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
|
आपण /aˑpəɳ/ |
आम्ही /aˑmʱiˑ/ |
?? |
|
Min NanThe Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora....
|
咱 (lán) |
阮 (goán/gún) |
Exclusive |
|
| Quechua |
ñuqanchik |
ñuqayku |
Both |
| Samoan Samoan Samoan Samoan (Gagana Sāmoa, is the language of the Samoan Islands, comprising the independent country of Samoa and the United States territory of American Samoa. It is an official language—alongside English—in both jurisdictions. Samoan, a Polynesian language, is the first language for most...
|
itatou |
imatou |
Exclusive |
The dual forms are itaua (incl.) and imaua (excl.) |
ShawneeThe Shawnee language is a Central Algonquian language spoken in parts of central and northeastern Oklahoma by only around 200 Shawnee, making it an endangered language. It was originally spoken in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania...
|
kiilawe |
niilawe |
Exclusive |
The inclusive form is morphologically derived from the second person pronoun kiila. |
TagalogTagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
|
táyo |
kamí |
?? |
|
| Tausug Tausūg is a language spoken in the province of Sulu in the Philippines, in Malaysia, and in Indonesia by the Tausūg people....
|
kitaniyu |
kami |
?? |
The dual inclusive is kita. |
TamilTamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
|
நாம் (nām) |
நாங்கள் (nāṅkaḷ) |
Inclusive |
|
TeluguTelugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
|
మనము (manamu) |
మేము (memu) |
?? |
|
TetumTetum is an Austronesian language, a national language and one of the two official languages of East Timor. It is also used in parts of West Timor that adjoin East Timor, particularly in Belu Regency...
|
ita |
ami |
?? |
|
| Tok Pisin Tok Pisin is a creole spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an official language of Papua New Guinea and the most widely used language in that country...
|
yumipela |
mipela |
Exclusive |
The inclusive form is derived from the second person pronoun and the first person pronoun. There are also dual and trial forms. |
| Tupinambá Old Tupi or Classical Tupi is an extinct Tupian language which was spoken by the native Tupi people of Brazil, mostly those who lived close to the sea. It belongs to the Tupi–Guarani language family, and which has a written history spanning the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries...
|
îandé |
oré |
Inclusive |
|
VietnameseVietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
|
chúng ta |
chúng tôi |
Inclusive |
The exclusive form is derived from the polite form of I, tôi |
Further reading
- Jim Chen, First Person Plural (analyzing the significance of inclusive and exclusive we in constitutional interpretation)
- Filimonova, Elena (eds). (2005). Clusivity: Typological and case studies of the inclusive-exclusive distinction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 90-272-2974-0.