Topics in the Grammar of Spanish Sign Language (LSE)

First person plural and dual pronouns may encode whether the denotation of the pronoun includes or excludes the addressee(s).

The exclusive meaning (‘I and others, not you’) is marked in plurals by displacing the circular movement traced by the pronoun towards the ipsilateral or towards the contralateral side of the signer’s body –see picture (a)–. The inclusive meaning (‘I, you (and others)’) is marked by tracing a circular movement that crosses the central space, defined by the axis created by the direction of the signer’s eye gaze and head orientation –see picture (b)–.

a) First person exclusive plural pronoun           b) First person inclusive plural pronoun

By using the same mechanism, the dual pronoun may also indicate whether it refers to the speaker and the addressee (inclusive meaning: ‘I and you.sg’) or to the speaker and other person, not the addressee (exclusive meaning: ‘I and someone else, not you’). Therefore, when the head and the eye gaze are aligned with the movement traced by the sign –as in picture (a) below– the pronoun conveys the inclusive meaning, whereas a misalignment in the direction of the hand with respect to the head and the eye gaze results in the exclusive interpretation –as in example (b)–.

 a) Dual inclusive pronoun              b) Dual exclusive pronoun