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  Personal Pronouns - Person (First person, Second person, Third person)

• Definition

  Grammatical person refers to the perspectives of the personal pronouns used to identify a person in speech and text—that is, it distinguishes between a speaker (first person), an addressee (second person), and others beyond that (third person).

  First person

• Singular: I, me, my, mine, myself

• Plural: we, us, our, ours, ourselves

  First-person pronouns are used to express an autobiographical point of view—they tell what is directly happening to the speaker, writer, or fictional character. For example:
• “I don’t know where my hat is!”
• “Janet is meeting me in town later.”
• “Hey, that book is mine! I bought it!”
  When the speaker is part of a group, the first-person pronouns inflect to the plural form:
• “We brought our own car.”
• “They told us to help ourselves.”

  Second person

• Singular/Plural: you, you, your, yours, yourself (singular), yourselves (plural)

  We use the second-person pronouns to indicate those who are being addressed directly by the speaker. Unlike first-person pronouns, there is not a distinction between singular and plural second-person pronouns (except in the reflexive form). Here are some examples:
• “Bill, I was wondering if you could help me with the dishes?” (second person singular)
• “Children, where are your manners?” (second person plural)
• “You really must learn to help yourself.” (second person singular)
• “I’m sick of cleaning up after all of you; from now on, you can clean up after yourselves!” (second person plural)

  Usage note: Generic “you”

  The second-person pronouns are also often used to indicate an unspecified person. This is sometimes referred to as generic you, impersonal you, or indefinite you. This is less formal than its counterpart, the pronoun one, but it is sometimes preferred because it does not sound as snobbish or unnecessarily formal.
  If one is writing something very formal or professional, then one might be better off using the generic pronoun one. If you’re writing something a bit less formal, then you are probably just fine using the generic pronoun you.

  Third person

  Third person is used to talk about someone or something that is not the speaker and is not being directly addressed. This is most widely used in fiction writing. When the person or thing is singular, the pronouns used in the third person are the different forms of she, he, and it:

• Feminine singular: she, her, hers, herself

• Masculine singular: he, him, his, himself

• Neuter singular: it, its, its own, itself

  However, when there are multiple people or things, we use the ungendered forms of they:

• Third person plural: they, them, their, theirs, themselves

  Sometimes, when a single person of an unknown gender is being discussed, the third-person plural forms (they, them, etc.) are used as a gender-neutral alternative to the third-person feminine/masculine forms. To learn more about this, please see the Usage Note about “Singular they” under the chapter section explaining gender in personal pronouns.

  Quiz

• 1.   Which perspective of grammatical person is used for someone being addressed directly by the speaker?

  a)   First person

  b)   Second person

  c)   Third person

  d)   Third-person plural

  
  

  2.   Which of the following sentences uses a first-person plural pronoun?

  a)   “John said that I should be more careful with my writing.”

  b)   “They are not happy with your sales this quarter.”

  c)   “I’m not sure that he knows what they’re doing.”

  d)   “She doesn’t think that we should be paying that much.”

  
  
  

  3.   Who or what would be represented by third-person pronouns in a sentence?

  a)   A person or thing who is not being directly addressed by someone

  b)   A person or thing who is being directly addressed by someone

  c)   A person who is directly addressing someone or something

  d)   A person who is speaking about someone or something who is not present

  
  

  4.   Which perspective (or perspectives) of grammatical person are being used in the following sentence?

  “When we were young, my father often told us that he didn’t have as many luxuries growing up.”

  a)   First person

  b)   Second person

  c)   Third person

  d)   Both first and third person

  e)   Both second and third person

  f)   First, second, and third person