Person

Revision as of 18:07, 14 January 2010

Person is a category that defines the deictic reference to a participant in an event, such as the speaker, the addressee or others.

Natural language

Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns, which does not necessarily coincide with the roles in the verbal interaction. In French, for instance, "vous", which is the personal pronoun for the second person of plural, may be used to refer to a single addresse; and "on" is always a third person of singular, even when used to refer to a group comprising the speaker.

Examples

• English
  • 1PS = I, me, my, mine, am
  • 2PS = you, your, yours
  • 3PS = he, she, it, his, her, hers, its, is, loves
  • 1PP = we, us, our
  • 2PP = you, your, yours
  • 3PP = they, them, theirs
• French
  • 1PS = je, moi, me, mon, mien, suis, aimes
  • 2PS = tu, toi, te, ton, tien, es, aimes
  • 3PS = il, elle, le, la, lui, se, on, son, sien, est, aime
  • 1PP = nous, notre, nôtre, sommes, aimons
  • 2PP = vous, votre, vôtre, êtes, aimez
  • 2PP = ils, elles, les, las, leur, se, sont, aiment

UNL

In UNL, person should be represented by attributes but only in case of personal pronouns, which are to be represented by the Null UW. The values for person attributes are:

The value of the attribute must reflect the role of the participant (which may not coincide with the corresponding grammatical person).

On va partir demain. (We'll leave tomorrow) : grammatical person = 3PS, attribute = @1 (first person)

The number of participants should be informed through the number attributes

I'll leave = 00.@1

We'll leave = 00.@1.@pl

The gender of participants should be informed through the gender attributes

He'll leave = 00.@3.@male ("he" should be represented by "00.@3.@male" only in case of exophora)

She'll leave = 00.@3.@female ("she" should be represented by "00.@3.@female" only in case of exophora)

Degrees of formality and informality should be informed through the social deixis attributes

Tu es belle, Sophie! (You're beautiful, Sophie!) = 00.@2

Vous êtes belle, Sophie! (You're beautiful, Sophie!) = 00.@2.@formal

Examples

• English
  • I go: agt(go, 00.@1)
  • We go: agt(go, 00.@1.@pl)
  • You go: agt(go, 00.@2) or agt(go, 00.@2.@pl)
  • It goes: agt(go, 00.@3) ("it" should be represented by "00.@3" only in case of exophora)
  • They go: agt(go, 00.@3.@pl) ("they" should be represented by "00.@3" only in case of exophora)
• French
  • Je vais (I go): agt(aller, 00.@1)
  • Tu vas (You go): agt(aller, 00.@2)
  • On va (We go): agt(aller, 00.@1.@pl)
  • Nous allons (We go): agt(aller, 00.@1.@pl)
  • Vous allez (You go): agt(aller, 00.@2.@formal) or agt(aller, 00.@2.@pl)
  • Il va (He goes): agt(go, 00.@3) ("il" should be represented by "00.@3" only in case of exophora)
  • Ils vont (They go): agt(go, 00.@3.@pl) ("ils" should be represented by "00.@3" only in case of exophora)