Grammar: Person of nouns

in-nuce.com noun of person

The properties of the nouns are gender, person, number, and case.  

Person of nouns

From A New English Grammar for Schools, by Thomas Harvey

Person is that property of a noun or a pronoun which distinguishes the speaker, the person spoken to, and the person or object spoken of

There are three persons: first, second, and third.  

1. Speaking

The first person denotes the speaker.

I, John, was in the isle that is called Patmos.” 
“Many evils beset us mortals.”

2. Spoken to

 The second person denotes the person addressed.

James, be more careful.”
Fellow-citizens, the crisis demands the utmost vigilance.”

3. Spoken of

The third person denotes the person or object spoken of.

Milton was a poet.
Rome was an ocean of flame.
I am reading Tennyson’s Poems.

a.  The writer or speaker may sometimes speak of herself, or the person she addresses, in the third person; as,

b.  A noun in the predicate is of the third person, though the subject may be of the first or second; as,

You are the woman wanted.”
We are strangers. 
I am she whom you saw.” 



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