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The context of the question is the lyrics of a song 『小さな手のひら』by Chara. The very first two verses of the song begins with,

あわせて あんな風にちゃんと

抱いて 抱いて 抱いてちょうだい

I am confused on the significance of あわせて in this instance. The best interpretation I have is to understand あわせて as "also," as in "Also, please give me a hug (in that way)." However, this does not make much sense to begin the sentence with "also." I was thinking maybe あわせて could also mean "according to (something)" in this instance. But I'm not sure if that's even grammatically correct. Any ideas?

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  • I would guess "all-in-all", in the big picture sense.
    – user3169
    Dec 26, 2018 at 6:51

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According to my intuition, 併せて ("besides", "also") is very unlikely because it's a fairly stiff word usually found in formal business letters and such.

This あわせて can be interpreted both as (手のひらを)合わせて ("please put the hands together") and (あなたに)会わせて ("please let me see you"), but apparently there is no clue that tells us which interpretation is correct. I feel the lyricist intentionally left it in hiragana so that it has a double meaning. In the latter half of the song, there is also こうかい written in hiragana, which can be interpreted both as 後悔 and 航海.

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  • Thank you! That seems to make sense. Do you think there is any connection between the "(手のひらを)合わせて" interpretation and the later line in the song, "小さな丸まった木の葉のような　手をしていたんだ." Could "手をしていたんだ" be referring to putting the hands together?
    – thenewpotato
    Dec 26, 2018 at 22:44
  • @TigerW. This 手をしていた is this.
    – naruto
    Dec 27, 2018 at 0:59

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