Grammatical Person‏‎ in English

 In Sentence Structure

In grammar person is used to show the relationship between the speaker and the listener or the writer and the reader.

For example, if I talk about myself I use the pronoun I but if someone talks to me, they use the pronoun you.
So depending on the person doing the talking and who they are talking about, pronouns and verb forms can change. Persons can also affect nouns and possessive relationships.

6 Grammatical Persons

English has 3 grammatical persons in the singular and 3 in the plural:


 ..
Quite simply, when a sentence or part of speech(verb, noun, pronoun, etc.) is in the first person singular it refers to the speaker or writer.
When it is in the first person plural it refers to a group that includes the speaker or writer.

If the sentence or part of speech is in the second person they refer to the person we are talking or writing to.
If they are in the third person they refer to someone or something different from the speaker or writer who is being addressed.


With verbs this translates into different forms depending on the person:

Person	Regular, e.g.	Irregular, e.g.
first person singular	I walk	I am
second person singular	you walk	you are
third person singular	he/she/it walks	he/she/it is
first person plural	we walk	we are
second person plural	you walk	you are
third person plural	they walk	they are

 

Spelling

As mentioned above, verbs add an -s to the end for the third person singular:

If the verb ends in a sibilant sound /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /tʃ/ (corresponding to the letters s, ch, sh, x or z) however, we add -es to the end:

If the verb ends in -y and there is a consonant before it then we replace the -y with -ies:

Verbs ending in -y preceded by a vowel follow the standard rule and simply add -s to the end of the verb: