We are looking for a construction where a nonsingular referent is expressed by a nonsingular form (superset) and a singular form (subset). The element expressing the superset could be either a free pronoun, an index or a plural noun/proper noun. An example: in We Harald talked ‘Harald and I talked.’, the free 1PL pronoun we is a superset, and included within that is the subset which is the 1SG referent (the ‘I’ in the translation) and the proper noun Harald. In some languages, this construction may involve associative duals and plurals. This feature includes implicit inclusory constructions (as seen above) and explicit inclusory constructions which may have an overt inclusory marker in the construction to further mark the inclusory construction. The subset can be expressed with different word classes such as proper nouns, numerals, demonstratives, etc. Inclusory constructions often take the form of nominal coordination constructions.
Nanggu (ISO 639-3: ngr, Glottolog: nang1262)
Coded 1. In Nanggu the comitative marker marks the included participant: it "indicates a co-actor to the agent expressed by the verb." The comitative "occurs with free augmented pronouns or verbs that express augmented number of the subject." The comitative below takes a third person minimal marker (Vaa 2013: 210–214).
Nege pa-ngolopli-ti-gâ ma-e matu. today IPFV:N3AUG.S/A:CAUS-decorate-TR-1AUG.S/A with-3MIN house ‘Today, we two decorate the house.’ (Vaa 2013: 211)
Marghi Central (ISO 639-3: mrt, Glottolog: marg1265)
Coded 1. Haspelmath (2007) gives the following example as the first and only language (at the time of writing) he has found which does not use a non-singular pronoun as the inclusory superset, but a non-singular proper noun marked with an associative plural form.
a. kàmbə̀ràwázhá-yàr àgá màlà gə́ndà Kamburawazha-APL with wife of.him ‘Kamburawazha and his wife’ (Hoffmann 1963: 57)
Central Marghi also has the more widely found inclusory construction with a non-singular inclusory pronoun marking the superset.
b. nà'y àgá Mádù we with Madu ‘Madu and I’ (Hoffmann 1963: 238)
Tamasheq (ISO 639-3: taq, Glottolog: tama1365)
Coded 0. The author calls the plural agreement marker næɤ in the following example an "inclusory pronominal clitic", but the nominal subset exhausts the potential referents and does not count as an inclusory construction. The nonsingular form (superset) is -næɤ ‘us’, and the singular forms (subset) are nækk ə̀d kæyy ‘me and you’ (Heath 2005: 702–705).
i-nhæ̀y-\ɑ-næɤ [nækk ə̀d kæyy] 3SG.M-see.PFV.AFF-\O-1PL 1Sg with 2.M.SG ‘He saw us, me and you.’ (Heath 2005: 703)
Haspelmath, Martin. 2007. Coordination. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, 1–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Singer, Ruth. 2001. The inclusory construction in Australian languages. Melbourne: The University of Melbourne. (Honours Thesis.)
Haspelmath, Martin. 2007. Coordination. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, 1–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heath, Jeffrey. 2005. A grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali). (Mouton Grammar Library, 35.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Hoffmann, Carl. 1963. A grammar of the Margi language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Vaa, Anders. 2013. A grammar of Engdewu: An Oceanic language of Solomon Islands. Oslo: University of Oslo. (Doctoral dissertation.)
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| 0 | absent | 863 | |
| 1 | present | 267 | |
| ? | Not known | 997 |
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