LINGUIST List 2.648

Mon 14 Oct 1991

Disc: X and I

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Niko Besnier, Inclusive reference in pronoun-noun coordinate constructions
2. , Re: "we with x"
3. Michael Barlow, Re: 2.645 Pronouns
4. Knud Lambrecht, Re: 2.645 Queries
5. Christopher Brockett, rwojcick: range-specifying NPs
6. Richard Ogden, 'X and I'
7. Ellen Prince, Re: Query on Pronouns
8. AHARRIS - Alan Harris, re: Kelly K. Wahl's inquiry on Turkish

Re: Kelly Wahl's query in 2.645
Coordinate pronoun-noun/pronoun constructions of the type `we and Bill' or
`you-2 and you' translating in English as `Bill and I' and `you and s/he'
respectively are very common throughout Polynesia and, I'd venture, across
Oceanic languages. In some Polynesian languages (e.g. Tongan) you *have* to
include the referent of the 2nd element in the coordinate structure in the
reference of the pronoun; in other languages (e.g. Tuvaluan), there is a
preference for doing so. Most logical possibilities are allowed, although
some are very strange; for example, in Southern Tuvaluan, ??_taaua mo koe_
`we-2-inclusive and you' and *_taaua mo au_ `we-2-inclusive and I' are weird
and not allowed respectively, because the coordinated element is rendered
superfluous by the specificity of the pronoun itself (_taaua_ is dual 1st
person inclusive, hence can only refer to the speaker and the addressee).
That the first should be only judged strange, while the second is out under
elicitation probably stems from the fact that, in ordinary communicative
contexts, there might be some ambiguity on the referent of an interlocutor,
but not of a speaker.
It might pay to go through the Croom Helm Descriptive Grammars to find out how
various Ls treat these constructions. Refer to the questionnaire in _Lingua_
1977, authored by Comrie & Smith.
Niko Besnier
Department of Anthropology
Yale University

The same construction that exists in Russian, namely "I and X"="we with X"
exists in Hungarian as well.
Anna Fenyvesi

Message 3: Re: 2.645 Pronouns

Kelly Wahl asks for references on constructions of the
form "we with/and X" with the meaning 'X and I'. Linda
Schwartz has several papers on this construction, which
she calls Plural Pronoun Constructions (PPC). In Schwartz
(1988) she notes that some version of the PPC occurs in
Latvian, Polish, Russian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Kp>elle, Mende,
Temne, Diola-Fogny, Ewe, Kirundi, Tera, Tagalog, Mokilese,
Yapese, Hawaiian, and Fijian.
Judith Aissen also has written about PPCs, but I don't
have a reference. I only have two references for Linda
Schwartz, but I think there are other papers.
I find interesting the cases where the plurality is expressed
as an agreement marker on the verb. (Schwartz and Aissen, among
others, have also looked at these examples.) My favourite examples
come from West Greenlandic where one of the conjuncts can be absent.
Hansi=lu aqagu aalla-ssa-agut
Hansi and tomorrow leave-FUT-1.PL.INDIC
'Hansi and I will leave tomorrow.' (Fortescue 1984:128)
Michael Fortescue 1984. West Greenlandic. Croom Helm Descriptive Grammars.
Croom Helm
Linda Schwartz 1985 Plural pronouns, coordination, inclusion. Papers
from the Tenth Minnesota Regional Conference on Language and Linguistics.
Dept of Linguistics. University of Minnesota.
Linda Schwartz. 1988. Asymmetric feature distribution in pronominal
'coordination' In Barlow and Ferguson (eds) Agreement In Natural Language.
Stanford: CSLI.
Michael Barlow
Linguistics, CSU San Marcos

Message 4: Re: 2.645 Queries

Kelly Wahl inquires about languages in which "x and I" is expressed as
"we with x". One other, perhaps little kno, example is spoken French.
(To understand the examples, one has to know that ON = NOUS in spoken
French, i.e. `we'.)
 Avec Michel on est alle' au cine'ma.
 On est alle' au cine'ma avec Michel.
Both can mean (and often do mean in conversational French) `Michel and
I went to the movies'. I do not know exactly what the difference is
between the two examples above, and I forgot which one is more common.
But I do know that this is common in the spoken language, at least in
Switzerland, but I'm pretty sure in France too.
I've been meaning to do some research into this construction for quite
a while now and have never gotten around to doing so. Is there anyone
out there who has noticed the construction in their dialect of French?
Knud Lambrecht (lambrecemx.utexas.edu)

These constructions also occur in Japanese, where they may be case-marked,
e.g.,
issai kara kookoo made o Amerika de sugosita
1-year from high-school to ACC LOC spent
'she spent from 1 year of age to high school in America'
Does anyone have any information about what happens in Turkish?

'X and I' is expressed as 'we with X' in Finnish too, at least in spoken
Finnish. I'm not sure about whether you'd write it.
Richard Ogden

>Date: Thu, 10 Oct 91 14:36:38 EDT
>From: Kelly.K.Wahlub.cc.umich.edu
>Subject: Query on pronouns
>
>In Russian, the concept "x and I" is expressed "we with x", where 'we'
> includes'x' (eg, 'Ivan and I' = 'we with Ivan'). I was told that this use or
> something
>similar exists in other languages, notably Turkish. Is this true (about
>Turkish), and what other languages does this (or something similar) exist in?
>Any references would be welcome.
yiddish has something similar tho not the same--mit 'with' as a variant of
'and', tho i don't think the two are everywhere interchangeable:
men shenkt laykhter mit bekher mit nokh azelkhe zakhn.
one gives [as gifts] candlesticks and (with) goblets and (with) other such
things.
an ofitser mit a yunger sheyner vayb zenen tsuzamen.
an office and (with) a young pretty wife are together.
note that the second one shows plural agreement.

if you want to say "John and I" in Turkish, you say 'john benimle' i.e. john
I-Gen.marker-shortened 'ile'--> le="with"; in very colloquial speech you get
the John I-with with out the gnitive marker, i.e., John benle. John ve ben,
literally John and I, is really quite rare. Coming to think about it, even
more idiomatic Turkish has Benle John (I-with John), too. Again, maybe Dan
Slobin can enlighten you more. AHARRISVAX.CSUN.EDU