Greek to Querétaro Otomi: distinguish our group from the people accompanying it
Greek plural pronouns leave some membership questions to context
The Centre for the Greek Language gives εμείς as the first-person plural pronoun and μας as a corresponding weak form. These identify a group containing the speaker without supplying separate inclusive and exclusive forms in that paradigm. When translating into Querétaro Otomi, establish whether the listener belongs to the group rather than assuming every Greek we has the same target realization.
The reference also distinguishes a weak personal pronoun from an identically shaped possessive through its function. A Greek expression referring to our belongings can therefore require both an ownership interpretation and a decision about who our includes. The source pronoun’s compact form does not make those two decisions interchangeable.
This is useful when a Greek invitation mentions what we are doing and what our family owns. The listener may be included in one group but excluded from the other. Resolve each expression through the actual participants; do not allow the repeated Greek form to force identical membership into every Otomi phrase.
San Ildefonso Otomi marks inclusive and exclusive groups
Palancar’s comparative study of number documents inclusive and exclusive first-person plural forms in San Ildefonso Tultepec Otomi, a Querétaro variety. It also illustrates number marking on possessed nouns, including an expression glossed our inclusive father. Greek-to-Otomi translation must therefore retain whether the listener shares the relevant relationship, rather than treating plural ownership as a count of several fathers.
The paper describes an ordinary singular–plural opposition in this variety alongside special behavior in split conjunction. These systems should not be collapsed into a universal instruction that every pair of people requires an ordinary dual pronoun. A Greek plural can denote two or more participants; its actual target realization depends on the Otomi construction as well as the group.
Palancar compares several Otomi languages and shows that historical dual forms have developed differently across them. An example from another locality is consequently not an automatic correction for a Querétaro result. The relevant evidence here is specifically San Ildefonso Tultepec, rather than a claim that all Otomi speakers share one number paradigm.
An accompanying participant can be grammatically separate from the main group
In Split Coordination in Otomi, Palancar analyzes a San Ildefonso expression glossed John is eating with Peter. The two people are encoded in separate noun phrases, with John as the more prominent participant. A Greek statement about somebody eating with a companion should preserve that asymmetry instead of automatically becoming a neutral list of two diners.
His contrasting examples involving Mary and Tony are particularly useful. With the split-construction morphology, a phrase naming both can mean that they were talking with an additional, contextually understood person. The corresponding description of Mary and Tony talking to each other uses a different construction. Treating the special number marking as a simple headcount would miss that extra companion.
For a Greek account, distinguish talking together within the named group from talking with somebody outside it. The Otomi marker can signal a construction whose associated participant is omitted but recoverable, rather than a contradiction in the number of visible names. This is why inspecting the participants and their relationship is more reliable than correcting a surprising form solely because its traditional label contains dual.
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