Benveniste

Clusivity is a newly coined term for the inclusive-exclusive distinction. An inclusive pronoun
necessarily includes reference to the addressee. An exclusive pronoun, excludes the addressee
from the reference.

Some languages have derived forms having clusivity distinction, i.e. one inclusive pronoun and one
different exclusive pronoun. Examples of this are Vietnamese, some varieties of Chinese among
others. In English this opposition is translated only as WE.

PERSONAL PRONOUNS
1st person:
singular: I
plural: WE
2nd person:
singular: YOU
plural: YOU
3rd person:
masculine: HE
feminine: SHE
non-personal: IT
plural: THEY

PERSON distinguishes the speaker or writer (1st person) from the addressee (2nd person) and from
those persons or things which are neither (3rd person).

The pronoun WE is a device for referring to I and one or more other people. The latter may
be INCLUSIVE of the addressee as shown below.

1. WE must increase our Defence spending, because war is inevitable. (Political speeches)
2. As WE saw in chapter four, WE should consume about one litre of water every day.
(Teacher students)

On the other hand, the EXCLUSIVE use does not include the addressee:
1. Mr Rogers and I have finished the report, Minister, where shall WE leave it?

RELATIONSHIPS OF PERSON IN THE VERB

The verb is the only class of words including the category of person. The forms of the
conjugation are classified according to their reference to person. In almost all the languages that
 we know the distinction of person is indicated in one way or another in the verbal forms, e.g. I
get up at six but my sister gets up at nine.

According to Arab grammarians, the first person is the one who speaks, the second person is
the one who is addressed and the third person is the one who is absent.

OPPOSITION

As Saussures, Benvenistes linguistic theory can be analysed on the basis of oppositions.

o I, YOU HE

In the first two persons, there are both a person involved and a discourse concerning that
person. I designates the one who speaks and at the same time implies an utterance
about I. YOU is designated by I. On the other hand, the third person contains an indication of a
statement about someone or something but not related to a specific person (non-person).

The first two persons are not on the same level as the third, and the third person is always
treated differently and not like a real verbal person. Person is inherent only in the
positions I and YOU. The third person is the non-personal form of verbal inflection.

Moreover, one important characteristic of I and YOU is their specific oneness- the one who
states and the one to whom I addresses himself are unique each time. But HE can be an
infinitive number of subjects or none.

Another characteristic is that I and YOU are reversible- I becomes YOU and YOU becomes I.
There is no such relationship possible between these two and HE.

Finally, it is important to notice that the third person is the only one by which a thing is
predicated verbally. Because it does not imply any person, it can take any subject or no subject.

o I - YOU

In their turn they are opposed to one another within the category they constitute.

The most common use of YOU is the representation of the person to whom I addresses himself.
It can also be used to represent the impersonal. In English YOU can serve to denote an
indefinite agent (one), e.g. You can never be too careful, One can never be too careful. Every
person that one imagines is of the YOU form, but not necessarily the person being
addressed YOU, can be defined as the non- I person.
o INCLUSIVE EXCLUSIVE

This twofold distinction has been created in the verbal form of the first person plural. The
oneness and the subjectivity inherent in I contradict the possibility of pluralization (plural
singular). WE is not a multiplication of identical objects but a combination between I and
the non-I, no matter what the content of this non-I may be.

WE is expressed in one way for a) I and YOU, and in another for b) I and THEY.

a) The inclusive form affects the junction of persons between whom exists the correlation of
subjectivity.

b) The exclusive use consists of a combination of two forms which oppose one another as
personal and non-personal by virtue of the correlation of person.

Furthermore, there are two opposed uses outside the ordinary plural. On the one hand, the I is
amplified by WE into a person that is more massive and less defined: the royal WE. On the other
hand, the use of WE blurs the assertion of I into a more diffuse expression: the WE of the
author or orator (to avoid the personal or to represent a collective viewpoint)

In conclusion, the expressions of verbal person are basically organized by two correlations:
The correlation of personality opposing the I, YOU persons to the non-person HE.

The correlation of subjectivity operating within the opposing I to YOU.

The pluralization should be seen as a distinction between the strict person (singular) and the
amplified person (plural). Only the third person, being non-person, admits a true plural.

Bakhtins addressivity
An essential (constitutive) marker of the utterance is its quality of being directed to someone, its
addressivity.

Thus, addressivity, the quality of turning to someone, is a constitutive feature of the utterance;
without it the utterance does not and cannot exist. The various typical forms this addressivity
assumes and the various concepts of the addressee are constitutive, definitive features of
various speech genres.