Knowledge base · Part X — The Personal-Affix System and Alignment · this topic as a network
64. First-Person Plural and the Clusivity Question (ci=/=as, un=)
How does the language distinguish exclusive from inclusive first-person plural reference?
The exclusive first plural paradigm
What forms mark exclusive first-person plural subject and object?
In the exclusive first-person plural, the pronominal form is cóka, or optionally cóka 'utar when emphasizing a large group, with plural grammatical number denoting two or more individuals on the speaker's side to the exclusion of the addressee (Tamura 1972: 18). This person may refer to two or more individuals speaking at the same time or, far more commonly, it includes third parties associated with the speaker whether they are present or not (Tamura 1972: 18). In colloquial speech, the transitive subject marker is the prefix ci-, which has the allomorph c- before vowels other than i, and appears before consonants or on copulas and nouns in the belonging form (Refsing 1986: 215, Satō 2008: 29, 30, 108, 223, Tamura 1972: 18). The intransitive subject marker is the suffix -as (or -ash / -'ás) (Refsing 1986: 215, 228, Satō 2008: 29, 108, 223, Tamura 1972: 18). In the Ishikari dialect, the intransitive suffixes -an and -as combine with second-person object markers to function as transitive subject suffixes, producing combinations such as e-...-an and es-...-as (Shibatani 1990). When quoting the speech of multiple third persons in the Saru dialect, quotative forms are almost always used, though ordinary exclusive forms rarely occur (Tamura 1972: 26). The objective marker across dialects, including Saru and Shizunai, is the prefix un- (or 'un-), meaning 'us (excluding addressee)' (Refsing 1986: 215, Bugaeva & Kobayashi 2022: 15.2, Satō 2008: 32, 120, Tamura 1972: 18). In Shizunai, ci-, -as, and un- belong to colloquial speech and are restricted to referring to a cohesive, clearly defined, known group that the speaker represents and speaks for (Refsing 1986: 215, 217, 31). Kindaichi lists the same functions for ci- as for a-, excluding the passive voice and the honorific second person (reported in Refsing 1986: 31). In kamuy yukar epics, the narrator or protagonist uses these exclusive markers—coka, ci=, =as, and un=—for self-reference as a kind of pluralis majestatis or elevated first person, with ci- marking elevated nominative singular or plural and un- marking elevated objective (Bugaeva 2008, Bugaeva 2022: 20.6, Kindaichi & Chiri 1936, Nakagawa 2024: 602, Satō 2004). In the Saru and Chitose dialects, this divine speech register is also found outside verse in the sound imitation of an owl's call, pewrep ci=koyki! (Nakagawa 2024: 602).
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Tripartite patterning: S, A, and O are distinct
How does the language mark subject and object roles for first-person plural exclusive?
In affirmative clauses, verbal agreement for the first-person plural exclusive exhibits a tripartite alignment that distinguishes the transitive subject ci=, the intransitive subject =as, and the object un= (Bugaeva 2006: 185, Bugaeva 2008, Bugaeva 2022: 1.4). This contrasts with the inclusive set in affirmative clauses, which also shows tripartite alignment distinguishing the transitive subject a=, the intransitive subject =an, and the object i= (Bugaeva 2006: 185, Bugaeva 2008). In the Saru dialect, the exclusive subject of a single-argument verb takes the suffix -as, whereas the subject of a two-argument or three-argument verb takes the prefix ci- (Bugaeva & Kobayashi 2022: 15.2). In the Shizunai dialect, whenever an intransitive verb combines with a nominative pronominal affix that alternates between a prefix and a suffix—namely the first-person plural and the indefinite person—it obligatorily takes the suffixal form (Refsing 1986: 140). In Sakhalin Ainu, the first-person plural affix 'an prefixes to transitive verbs as 'an= and suffixes to intransitive verbs as ='an (Murasaki 2025: 9, 27, 93).
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Clusivity: the exclusive row and the fourth-person inclusive
How does the language distribute 'we' across exclusive and inclusive forms?
In colloquial conversation, the first-person plural form is strictly exclusive, referring to 'we' without the hearer, while an inclusive 'we' that includes the addressee is marked by the fourth person (Nakagawa 2024: 165, 175). The exclusive forms use the transitive subject ci-, the intransitive subject -as (or -ash in Class II division i verbs such as itak(-pa)-ash), and the object un-, whereas the inclusive forms use the transitive subject a-, the intransitive subject -an (as in itak(-pa)-an), and the object i- (Satō 2008: 108, 29, 32, 120, Kindaichi & Chiri 1936). The inclusive category possesses the independent pronoun 'a'oká (or 'a'oká 'utar for a large group) with the indexes 'a-, -án, and 'i-, which strictly speaking designates a '1st-2nd person' encompassing speaker and addressee, contrasting with cóka as the plural counterpart to singular káni (Tamura 1972). Colloquial clusivity categories developed by employing the first-person affixes of Classical Ainu as inclusive markers, where a- is treated as fundamentally an inclusive prefix by Kindaichi and Chiri (Shibatani 1990; reported in Refsing 1986: 31). In poetic style, un- acts as a first-person objective, and i- in i-sikerayke serves as an elevated first-person plural objective marker (Kindaichi & Chiri 1936, Satō 2008: 295). In daily speech, the suffix -an is restricted to plural verbs such as arki-an 'we come' and is never used with singular ek, but in the elegant language of Saru and Chitose, -an can occur with singular verbs such as ek-an 'I am coming' (reported in Endō 2022: 10.3). In the Shizunai dialect, inclusive reference is not an independent grammatical category of the first person plural but is analyzed as a function of the indefinite person a- / an-, which is used whenever the group is not a small, cohesive, speaker-represented unit, while ci- is never used for the indefinite person (Refsing 1986: 24, 31, 215). In the dialogue of the Ainu Shin'yōshū (Horobetsu dialect), characters' speech contains a mixture of first-person plural forms like ci=rewsire and fourth-person forms like a=rewsire for the same situation, even though narrative prose is uniformly in the first-person plural (Nakagawa 2024: 475). Unlike Hokkaido dialects, Sakhalin Ainu lacks the exclusive affixes ci- and -as, as well as the clusivity distinction, employing an- / -an for both inclusive and exclusive reference; moreover, in the northern west coast of Sakhalin, first-person plural affixes are sometimes used in place of singular forms (Bugaeva 2016, Tangiku 2022: 9.6, 9.7).
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Tokachi evidence and dialect scope
What evidence from a specific dialect supports the exclusive-inclusive distinction?
In Iburi excluding the Mukawa area, the colloquial incorporating conjugation marks a first-person nominative subject acting on a second-person object by means of the suffix -ash, as in e-kore-ash, echi-kore-ash, and i-kore-ash (Kindaichi & Chiri 1936). In Sakhalin Ainu elder speech, the first-person plural affix 'an is used as a first-person singular affix (Murasaki 2025: 9, 92).
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Morphological status of the indexes and notation
What is the morphological status of the personal indexes?
The exclusive first-person plural transitive subject prefix ci- drops its vowel before vowel-initial verb stems, surfacing as c= before /a, e, o, u/ in Southern Hokkaido and generally before vowels (Bugaeva 2012: 468–469, Bugaeva 2022: 20.6). For Class II verbs, first-person subject markers appear as suffixes, as seen in chish-an 'I weep' (Kindaichi & Chiri 1936). The indefinite derivational prefix ci- is homophonous with the exclusive first-person plural transitive subject prefix ci- (Satō 2008: 207). In addition, the prefix chi- has a universal person function that derives nominals such as chi-mi-p 'clothing', chi-o-ipe-p 'tableware', chi-e-ninui-pe 'pillow', and chi-nunuke-i 'genitals' (Kindaichi & Chiri 1936).
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