The Category of Person

The category of person serves to associate the process with three deictic categories in a communicative act: the speaker, the addressee and the one (ones) not participating in a communicative act. The speaker is first person (I, we); the addressee is second person (you) and the one (ones) not participating in the act is thirdperson (he, she, it, they)1. The deictic centre of the communicative act is the speaker, i.e. first person. In the process of communication, the deictic center keeps changing: I -> you; you -> I, which suggests that the deictic center is always the speaker, i.e. the one who is speaking at the moment.

The three deictic categories, or persons, are, as a rule, lexicalized in languages, i.e. special words are used. These words are called personal pronouns.

In a communicative act, third person pronouns can be deictic and non-deictic (anaphoric).

Eg. John got home late and he was very tired (he is anaphoric). vs. John looked up when he came in (with he bearing heavy stress) (he is deictic). If third person pronouns are deictic, there will usually be some accompanying paralinguistic feature: a nod of the head, a gesture with the hand, etc. I go-we go

In English, only the third person present tense singular form expresses person grammatically; therefore, the verb forms are obligatorily associated with personal pronouns.

Special mention should be made of the modal verbs and the verb be. Modal verbs, with the exception of shall/should and will/would, do not show person grammatically.

Eg I can speak English

I shall speak English

You can speak English

You will speak English

He, she can speak English

He, she will speak English

To sum up, the category of person is represented in English by two member oppositions: third person singular vs. non-third person singular. The marked member of the opposition is third person; the unmarked member is non-third person (it includes the remaining forms - first person, second person forms -singular and plural).

The Category of Number

The category of number shows whether the process is associated with one doer or with more than one doer, e.g. He eats three times a day. The sentence indicates a single eater; the verb is in the singular despite the fact than more than one process is meant. The category of number is a two-member opposition: singular and plural. An interesting feature of this category is the fact that it is blended with person: number and person make use of the same morpheme.

As person is a feature of the present tense, number is also restricted to the present tense.

Eg. John goes to college. vs. John went to college.

The students live in dormitories. vs. The students lived in dormitories.

Goes is singular + third person; the remaining forms are not marked for number. The same holds good for the verb be used in the present tense:

I am at home.

John is at college now.

The forms am, is are first and third person singular; the remaining forms are not marked for number. Consider now examples in which be is used in the past tense:

I was at home.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 985