Tagalog makes a distinction between what is generally referred to as inclusive and exclusive 'we' — a distinction in other words between reference to the speaker and one or more others, including the addressee, and the speaker and one or more others, excluding the addressee. … Schachter & Otanes (1972) label the paradigm they propose as follows:
Their labelling raises two questions. The first issue is the choice of the label non-plural instead of singular; this is presumably because the pronoun kata, which refers to the speaker and one addressee, involves more than one person (so is not singular). The second concern is the label dual; this is a rather odd choice of term, since dual is usually used as part of a NUMBER system ([singular], [dual], [trial], [paucal], [plural] etc.) not a PERSON system; and in any case, the 'plural' inclusive pronoun tayo refers to more than two people (the speaker, addressee, and one or more others). But we can see the problem Schachter & Otanes have here: the categories they inherited from the Greco-Roman tradition don't fit — because Tagalog has four persons not three.
The first group is called non-plural rather than singular because it included dual pronouns, meaning literally 'you (singular) and I'.
[2] To be clear, this misleads by ignoring the explanation given by the authors. Schachter & Otanes (1972: 88) explain the reasoning behind their number proportionalities as follows:
The plural pronouns have, as a group, the meanings of the corresponding non-plural pronouns with the additional meaning 'and others' (or 'and another'): thus the first-person plural is literally 'I and others', the dual plural 'you (singular) and I and others', etc.
Martin's purpose in ignoring the explanation given by the authors will be seen in the following post.
[4] This is misleading because it is not true. Tagalog has three persons, not four, since, as Martin himself acknowledges, 'dual' is a number category, not a person category.
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