と-particle as "and" vs. と-particle as "with"


  1. **と as "and":** This follows the Noun＋と＋Noun(と) pattern:

> 犬 **と** 猫がいる
>
> There is a dog _and_ a cat.

  2. **と as "with":**

> 友達 **と** 遊ぶ。
>
> Play _with_ friend.

  3. **Combining both senses at once:** Here the first と is being used in the "and" sense, while the second is being used in the "with" sense:

> 父 **と** 母 **と** 公園に行きます。
>
> I'm going to the park _with_ my father _and_ mother.

**Question:** Do native Japanese view these two uses of と as one, singular
concept? Or do they view them as two seperate things that just happen to both
use "と"?

I ask because if I squint my eyes I can kind of see the "and" usage of と being
subsumed by the "with" usage:

> 犬と猫がいる
>
> => There is a dog _with_ a cat.

> 父と母と公園に行きます。
>
> => I'm going to the park _with_ my father, _with_ my mother.

As far as I can tell, these convey basically the same meaning as the original
translations. So I'm wondering if the fact that English speakers parse と as
either "and" or "with" is some quirk of our language, and not the way actual
Japanese people see it?




This question is hard to answer logically. A native speaker of a language
doesn't try to analyze the role of a function word like you do. Have you ever
wondered [how many roles the English preposition _with_
has](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/en/with/) from the perspective of a
foreigner? Some of them may seem quite similar to someone, but other people
may not agree with them.

That said, putting aside uncommon literary sentences and complicated sentences
like [this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/17743/5010), one verb cannot
take the same particle twice for the same purpose (e.g., パンをステーキを食べる and
彼に彼女に会う are incorrect). I suppose many untrained native Japanese speakers
would intuitively feel those two と's are at least slightly different.

