Suppose there are only five humans in the world – David, Gustavo, DocV, Ahmad (I) and Mr X.

Mr X and I laugh after something funny happens. David asks me why we laughed, and I say:

1. We are humans. Humans laugh when something funny happens.

No problems so far (hopefully).

Thereafter, David tells Gustavo and DocV:

2. They are the humans who laugh when something funny happens.

Now, here is the problem.

In ‘2’, ‘(the) humans’ refers to me and Mr X only, and we use the definite article to restrict the reference
to only the two of us. But, when I look at ‘1’, I see two things. “Humans laugh when something funny
happens,” here ‘humans’ refers to all five of us, but in “We are humans,” ‘humans’ refers (apparently) to
only the two of us. Now, if that is the case then we surely need the definite article to restrict the
reference in the latter case, but we do not use the definite article in this or similar constructions.Why is
it so?

Thanks for bearing with me.

unless, we mean something more than what seems to be the case. Does it make sense?

Is it that when I say “We are humans,” I am actually saying something like the following:

We are two humans among all the five humans.

that constitute humanity.

Here humans refers to only to Mr X and myself.

It makes us represent a part of humanity.

We are humans also refers to only myself and Mr X.

We are humans among all the five humans that constitute humanity.

Here humans surely includes the five of us.

In 2 humans