Japanese ~tachi, and related concepts

[Burke]

Hi everyone. I think this fits best here, but if I have mistaken, guide me please. Still a bit green around here.

I had been thinking today about the Japanese ~tachi suffix. I understand what it denotes, as in Marikotachi conveys a "Mariko and company" sort of sense, and am fairly comfortable with using it. However, I don't know what this is properly called. I figured someone here might know its proper name.

Also, are there similar concepts used in other languages you are familiar with? My curiosity got a bit of a spark today.

Thanks Kindly!

[linguoboy]

I've seen these called collective particles/suffixes. Chinese 們 -men behaves similarly, as does Korean 네 /ney/.

[Burke]

I did not know that!

Thanks. I will be looking at this stuff.

[WeepingElf]

I don't think "collective" is the correct term here. I have heard it called "associative plural".

EDIT: Confirmed.

[Ser]

The WALS also uses "associative plural" in Chapter 36.

Chinese 們 -men behaves similarly,

Are you sure you're not confusing it with Cantonese 哋? I thought that when 們 attaches to human nouns of more than one syllable, they're stereotypical plurals plurals and not associative plurals.

[Chagen]

Oddly, I've seen it used to basically be a plural (Such as "Watashi-tachi"--I've heard it translated as "we").

I remember reading that -/tati/ was merely a plural suffix in Old Japanese. I wonder what caused it to gain the collective plural meaning it has today.

[clawgrip]

Oddly, I've seen it used to basically be a plural (Such as "Watashi-tachi"--I've heard it translated as "we").

That's because English "we" is also an associative plural: It means "I and people associated with me," not "more than one of me."

I remember reading that -/tati/ was merely a plural suffix in Old Japanese. I wonder what caused it to gain the collective plural meaning it has today.

As far as I know, plural has never been a particularly salient feature of any form of recorded Japanese. I don't actually know the specific history of -tachi but guess because of the low priority of pluralization, one suffix was able to take on additional, specialized meanings (just like the non-essential Japanese passive voice has taken on specialized meanings). It's not a huge leap between normal and associative plural. Both of them indicate a group of things, just that regular plural uses a generic example and associative plural a specific one.

There is also -ra which functions the same as -tachi (cf. karera "they", Mariko-sanra "Mariko and company"). This -ra suffix is nearly always written in hiragana, but its kanji is 等, which is the same kanji that is used for nado "etc., and so on," which is another associative plural "(this thing) and things similar to/associated with it."

[Radius Solis]

I've also heard them called associative plurals, or just associatives. Though plurality is intrinsic in the notion this is not necessarily relevant in the grammar of a given language, and the kinship with collectives may be more relevant in some cases.

Also, I'm curious - to what extent can Japanese -tachi appear with nouns that aren't people? People are the prototypical examples I've always seen for associatives, but what about animals or inanimate objects? Can you add it to "mother bear" to get something meaning "mother bear and her cubs"? What about a computer - can you use it to mean "computer and the stuff that goes with it (keyboard, mouse, speakers, printer, whatever)"?

[clawgrip]

It can't be used with inanimate objects. It is essentially a suffix meant for people. It can and is used for animals, but this is a little bit cutesy or informal, because it is essentially humanizing the animals, which children do often; for example, it is extremely common for children to put -san on animals (or even food!).

[Burke]

That video was great.

Also, thanks for all the info guys. I especially like the point of this only being applied to humans. I love animacy hierarchies!

[linguoboy]

Chinese 們 -men behaves similarly,

Are you sure you're not confusing it with Cantonese 哋? I thought that when 們 attaches to human nouns of more than one syllable, they're stereotypical plurals plurals and not associative plurals.

Not IME. 教師們 must refer to a particular group of teachers; you would never use it to refer to teachers in general. (Unless this is starting to appear in "translatese"?)

[Ser]

Chinese 們 -men behaves similarly,

Are you sure you're not confusing it with Cantonese 哋? I thought that when 們 attaches to human nouns of more than one syllable, they're stereotypical plurals plurals and not associative plurals.

Not IME. 教師們 must refer to a particular group of teachers

That's still not an associative plural (and yes, it must also be definite or be like a vocative, etc.).

[gach]

I especially like the point of this only being applied to humans. I love animacy hierarchies!

Meadow Mari has a nice extension of this. It has a mostly associative plural -mət that's mostly used with words referring to people and denotes a group of people associated to that person. Examples are avamət "mother and those with her" and Pötərmət "Peter and his company".

In addition to this it can use the -mət plural as well as the basic plural -vlak with words of location to mean people from that place. Examples of this are Morko-vlak "people from Morko (village)" and Pujalmət "people from Pujal (village)". Based on the examples I have, this use seems to be confined to place names.

The examples were from Alhonniemi's Mari grammar.

[Drydic]

That is almost identical to Southern American [ən.Em] (<and them obviously), interesting.

[Zhen Lin]

It can't be used with inanimate objects. It is essentially a suffix meant for people. It can and is used for animals, but this is a little bit cutesy or informal, because it is essentially humanizing the animals, which children do often; for example, it is extremely common for children to put -san on animals (or even food!).

In principle, but I have seen constructions like 星たち (as opposed to the more orthodox 星々)...

[clawgrip]

Yeah, I guess I was wrong in saying it can't be used that way. I was caught up on his computer example, which I couldn't imagine being pluralized with -tachi, because I felt there was rarely a situation where someone would be likely to humanize a group of computers. And yet, it produces thousands of results on Google: "我が家のパソコン達" Wa ga ya no pasokon-tachi "the various computers in my home", 歴代のパソコン達 rekidai no pasokon-tachi "various sucessive generations of computers." I can find results for various other things kuruma-tachi "cars", o-sara-tachi "dishes", kumo-tachi "clouds", so it seems I spoke too definitively. It does seem though that in the case of inanimate objects it is always a standard plural, not an associative one.