While brushing up on my inclusive/exclusive-we constructions, I came across the following fact from English:
English distinguishes let’s from let us; the contracted form is inclusive while the full form is generally (though not always) exclusive. For example, the “us” in “(come on,) let’s eat” and “(hurry up,) let’s go” can only be inclusive, while context and prosody make it clear that the “us” in “let us eat” (= leave us alone) and “let us go” (= release us) is exclusive.
This demonstrates the classic theme of circumlocution, or “just because a language lacks a formal mechanism for marking a concept doesn’t mean that language can’t express the concept.”
