Türk Dillerinde İkili-Çoklu Kapsayan Ayrımı [Dual/Plural Inclusive in Turkic Languages]

Abstract

Pronouns are usually classified by person (first, second and third) and number (singular and plural). But the first person plural has also an exclusive/inclusive distinction. This distinction is based on whether the addressee is included (inclusive) or excluded (exclusive) by the speaker. The exlusive or inclusive meanings can be supplied by the context, This distinction is not typical for verbal inflection. There is another distinction which will be called dual/plural inclusive in this paper. Dual/plural distinction depending on whether the speaker addresses one person or more than one person occurs in the imperative mood and is attested only for the inclusive first plural person. This distinction has been termed exclusive/inclusive, dual/plural or augmented/minimal inclusive by various scholars. Unlike the exclusive/inclusive, the dual/plural inclusive distinction is seen in verbal inflection. The fact that this distinction is seen distinctively in Siberian Turkic area would seem to suggest that this feature is copied from other language groups. But the presence of this distinction in Turkmen and in some dialects of other Turkic languages means that the dual/plural distinction is an archaic feature and that it`s use has decreased over time. The fact that the dual/plural inclusive distinction is not only limited to Siberian languages and occurs in Turkmen, some Turkic dialects and historical Turkic written languages shows that this distinction is related to the common Turkic area. In this work, the first plural imperative formation is surveyed based on inclusive/exclusive and dual/plural inclusive distinctions. The formation of the first plural imperative is investigated functionally. Finally, a recontruction is given at the end of the paper.