Person

Person is an inflectional dimension used mostly on verbal predicates, possessed nouns and adpositions to denote the speech act participants speaker and hearer and their contrast with non-speech act particiants. In some languages, the dimension person is not categorized into speaker vs. hearer vs. non-speech act participants, but into what is called conjunct, locutor, informant, or epistemic source vs. other. The conjunct person is the speaker in statements and the addressee in questions.

Inflectional categories

• First person
• Second person
• Third person
• Fourth person
• Locutor
• Conjunct
• Epistemic source
• Informant

See also

• Impersonal
• Inclusive vs. exclusive

Origin

The term person and the names for the three main categories (first, second, third) go back to the ancient Greek grammarians.

Reference

• Siewierska, Anna. 2003. Person. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Other languages

French personne German Person (de)