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Grammatical Person

Free online contractions lessons and exercises. These exercises contain explanations, examples, and practice making contractions out of individual words. These exercises are colorful, organized, and contains easy-to-understand rules that students of all levels can grasp. Included is a chart of both positive and negative contractions.

Explanation

• Grammatical person shows the relationship between the speaker and other participants in an event. More specifically, it is a reference to a participant in an event, such as the speaker, the addressee (recipient of the speaker’s communication), or others. Grammatical person usually defines the set of personal pronouns used by the speaker. It also frequently affects verbs, sometimes nouns, and possessive relationships as well.  

• There are three grammatical persons in English:

1) First person. This is I when used to talk about yourself. I is always singular. This is we when used to talk about a group in which I is a member. We is plural.

2) Second person. This is you. Second person is used when referring to the addressee. The addressee may be singular or plural, depending on how many individuals are being addressed.

3) Third person. This is he, she, it, and they. Third person is used when referring to any person, place, or thing other than the speaker and the addressee.  

• Here is a table outlining personal pronouns and their grammatical persons:

Pronoun

Person

Plurality

           Gender

I

first person

singular

-

You

second person

singular / plural

-

He

third person

singular

masculine / neutral

She

third person

singular

feminine

It

third person

singular

neutral

We

first person

plural

-

They

third person

plural / singular

-

You all / you guys / y’all (slang)

second person

plural

-