PERSON

PERSON. A grammatical and semantic category applying to PRONOUNS and VERBS and used in describing the roles of people and things.

Pronouns

In STANDARD ENGLISH, the first-person pronouns are the speakers(s) or writer(s) together with any others included in the plural (I, me, we, us). The second-person pronouns are the addressee(s) and possibly others in the plural (you and archaic singular thou/thee). The third person pronouns are others being referred to (she, her, he, him, it, one, they, them). MELANESIAN PIDGIN ENGLISH makes a further distinction by having two words to correspond to we, one including speaker, listener, and possibly others (yumi: you-me) and one excluding the listener (mipela, me-fellow: ‘me and someone else’). There can also be different words for you, implying greater or lesser degrees of intimacy or formality, as with French tu/vous, comparable to the archaic and dialectal English distinction thou/you. The distinctions of person are shown not only in PERSONAL PRONOUNS but also in reflexive pronouns (myself) and possessive pronouns (my, mine).

There is no necessary correspondence between the grammatical and semantic category of person. In SPANISH, the formal pronouns usted/ustedes (you, singular/plural) semantically address people but are grammatically third-person pronouns. Usted derives from an original vuestra merced (your grace), and parallels the highly formal convention in English in Does Madam wish to look at some other hats? (addressed to a customer). Comparable usages in present-day English are the royal and editorial we and the generalized you. This use of we is semantically singular while grammatically plural, as in Queen Victoria's remark, ‘We are not amused.’ The generalized you, as in You never can tell, can you?, is second person grammatically but semantically includes others. Usage is sometimes ambiguous between the addressed and generalized you, prompting the question Do you mean me or everybody? Generic or inclusive he is a long-established usage in which the third-person masculine represents both man and woman (Ask anybody and he'll give you the same answer). Those who defend its use argue that sexist bias is not present in it or intended by it, and that the meaning is clear. Those who object to it argue that it misrepresents half the human race and reinforces male bias and social dominance. See GENERIC PRONOUN. In colloquial usage, they is often used instead (Ask anybody and they'll give you the same answer).

Verbs

In highly inflected languages like Latin, person is indicated in the verb itself: amo I love, amas thou lovest, amat he/she/it loves, amamus we love, amatis you (plural) love, amant they love. As a result, pronouns are used for other purposes, such as emphasis. In English, however, only the third-person singular of the present tense normally has a distinct form: he loves, she likes, it does. See VOICE.