Мы с Андреем

[pne]

In English or German, when talking about two people doing something together (one of them being myself), I'd say something along the lines of John and I went to the beach / Karl und ich waren gestern in München—that is, with "I" in the singular.

However, I learned that Russian uses, instead, a construction of the form Мы с Андреем: literally, "we with Andrew" rather than "Andrew and I".

So I was interested to read that Niuean apparently also uses this form; an example sentence in Seiter's Studies in Niuean Syntax reads:

Kini	e	maua	mo	Maka	e	māla
clear	Erg	we,Du,Ex	with	Maka	Abs	plantation
'Maka and I are clearing the plantation'

"We(two) with Maka" for "Maka and I" looks like the same construction as Russian uses. Nifty!

Comments

Re: Ergative and absolutive articles

[pne.livejournal.com]

As for "e" dividing verb from subject and subject from object, compare:

Kua kai e taua e tau uga
PERF eat ERG we.two ABS PL crab
We two have eaten crabs

with

Kua kai he tau uga a taua
PERF eat ERG PL crab ABS we.two
Crabs have eaten us two